WITH OUR ENVIRONMENT

Something is not yet right and ripe in our human society at the beginning of the 21st century and third millennium: missing is an unprecedented vision, boldness and courage to fashion a new, promising, better future. Our beliefs, society, ways of life, institutions and future goals must be reviewed and reappraised fundamentally from scratch. —Dr. Robert Muller

With all my heart I believe that the world's present system of sovereign nations can lead only
to barbarism, war and inhumanity. There is no salvation for civilization, or even the human race, other than the creation of a world government. —Albert Einstein
 
Humankind's desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government.
—Albert Einstein

World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good. —Peter Ustinov
 
I have long believed that the only way peace can be achieved is through world government. —Jawaharlal Nehru

Today the universal common good poses problems of world-wide dimensions, which cannot be adequately tackled or solved except by the efforts of public authorities endowed with a wideness of powers, structure and means of the same proportions; that is . . . on a world-wide basis. —Pope John XXIII
 
The age of nations has passed. Now, unless we wish to perish, we must shake off our old prejudices and build the Earth. The more scientifically I regard the world, the less can I see any possible biological future for it except in the active consciousness of its unity. —Teilhard de Chardin

There are no boundaries in the real Planet Earth. No United States, no Russia, no China, no Taiwan. Rivers flow unimpeded across the swaths of continents. The persistent tides the pulse of the sea do not discriminate; they push against all the varied shores on Earth. —Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau

If the level and amount of consumption and waste of the western ‘rich’ countries ever reaches the poor countries, it will mean the end of humanity. The big world corporations are busy doing it…The production, selling, consumption, accumulation, wastes’ and advertisement explosions in the western ‘rich’ countries and the continued population explosion in the poor countries will turn into major catastrophes. —Dr. Robert Muller

A three billion year old planet floating in the vast universe with mountains, seventy percent seas and oceans, fertile lands, immense forests, rivers and lakes, sea shores and deserts, this is where we humans have the privilege to live, the latest, most advanced newcomers in evolution.  What an immense, incredible responsibility we have to be a right, positive element in the further evolution of that planet.  That is the big question before us in the new century and millennium. —Dr. Robert Muller

Around the world today people are spontaneously spawning a culture dedicated to creating conditions conducive to life. —Kenny Ausubel

Our true nationality is mankind. —H.G. Wells

A sustainable agriculture is one which depletes neither the people nor the land. —Wendell Berry

We can build an economy that does not destroy its natural support systems, a global community where the basic needs of all the Earth’s people are satisfied, and a world that will allow us to think of ourselves as civilized. This is entirely doable. —Lester Brown

Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies continues to be degraded. —UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

The greatest weapon of mass destruction is corporate economic globalization. —Kenny Ausubel

If the aim is globalization without marginalization, we can no longer tolerate a world in which there live side by side the immensely rich and the miserably poor, the have-nots deprived even of essentials and people who thoughtlessly waste what others so desperately need. Such countries are an affront to the dignity of the human person. He further said, Ethics demand that systems be attuned to the needs of man, and not that man be sacrificed for the sake of the system. —Pope John Paul II

The proper goal of an economic democracy agenda is to replace the global suicide economy ruled by rapacious and unaccountable global corporations with a planetary system of local living economies comprised of human-scale enterprise rooted in the communities they serve and locally owned by the people whose wellbeing depends on them. —David Korten

The choice is ours—yours and mine. We can stay with business as usual and preside over a global bubble economy that keeps expanding until it bursts, leading to economic decline. Or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that stabilizes population, eradicates poverty, and stabilizes climate. Historians will record the choice, but it is ours to make. —Lester Brown

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. —Albert Einstein


WITH OUR LEADERS

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. —Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends a tiny ripple of hope. Crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these simple rippes build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. —Robert Kennedy

Hope (noun). A desire for the future to be as good as you want it to be. —Cambridge International Dictionary

Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder or lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. —Frederick Douglas

Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. —Herrmann Goering (Hitler's Reich-Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials)

Democracy invites us to take risks. It asks that we vacate the comfortable seat of certitude . . . We are nothing but whiners if we are not willing to put our concerns and convictions on the line with a willingness to honestly listen and learn something beyond our own assumptions. —Terry Tempest Williams

Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person. —Mother Theresa

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. —Margaret Mead

Cooperative power. It's the kind of power that we generate when we work together in concert, peacefully, for common causes. Its point of origin is the heart and mind of each ordinary person.
—Jonathan Schell

The liberty of democracy is not safe if people tolerate growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism. —Franklin Roosevelt

The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit—a living democracy? —Terry Tempest Williams

The politics of lying at the current historical moment offers up the specter of totalitarianism as it seeks to eliminate intelligent deliberation, informed public discussions, engaged criticism, and the very possibility of freedom and a vital democratic politics. The spirit of critique must be supplemented with public debate, and a positive sense of individual and social agency capable of becoming both a witness to injustice and a force for transforming those conditions that impose silence and perpetuate human suffering. —Henry A. Giroux

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns; to surrender to too many demands; to commit one’s self to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. —Thomas Merton

Instead of trying to be responsible for all the problems in the world, we should take on what we love and care about. Then we honor both our inner world and the outer world at the same time. There’s no separation between the two, and there is no hesitation, no self-doubt. This will help us develop great faith that others are taking care of their piece. People who don’t know the details about climate change may care deeply about the forests, the animals, and the children. It is very important that we share, not only our merit, but also the responsibilities. Somehow we have to relieve ourselves of the enormity, which is so debilitating. —Paul Hawken

Joining with others to achieve the great possibility of America is as much fun you can have with your clothes on. —Jim Hightower

Some journalists are stubbornly pursuing the truth despite growing monopolies, government secrecy, ideology, and public relations spin doctors—but it’s getting tougher.” A profound transformation is happening. The framers of our nation never imagined what could happen if big government, big publishing, and big broadcasters ever saw eye-to-eye in putting the public need for news second to their own interests—and to the ideology of free-market economies. —Bill Moyers

If we are to have the kinds of public conversations essential to taking our serious dilemmas from climate change to criminal justice reform, we need forums for these conversations. The media can facilitate the conversations or shut them down. They can open up or constrain our beliefs about what is possible, what is desirable, who is deserving and which perspectives are legitimate. Our media are where we create our future. Our hope lies in the scrappy, independent writers, publishers and broadcasters who have something to say and will not be silenced, and the activists who are insisting that media have the independence to give us the real stories of our time. —Sarah Van Gelder


WITH EACH OTHER

We have entered the Third Millennium through the gate of fire. If today, after September 11, we see better and we see further, we will realize that humanity is indivislbe. —Kofi Annan

Peace comes within the souls of men when they realize their oneness with the Universe. —Black elk

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and if it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? —Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. —Common Wisdom

Although it is difficult to bring about peace through inner transformation, it is the only way to achieve lasting world peace. Even if during my lifetime it is not achieved, that is all right. The next generation will make more progress. —His Holiness the Dalai Lama

No despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. —Thomas Merton

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, in our entire society, will benefit from our peace. —Thich Nhat Hanh

May all beings everywhere with whom we are inseparably connected, be fulfilled, awakened, liberated and free. May there be peace in this world and throughout the entire universe, and may we all together complete the spiritual journey. —Mahayana Prayer

The point of a nation is not to draw a line in the sand and keep its members behind it, but to create world citizens who are secure enough to treat others equally. —Gloria Steinem

Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in armaments is not spending its money alone: it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any clouds of threatening war: it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. —Dwight D. Eisenhower

It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although it is difficult to bring about peace through internal transformation, this is the only way to achieve lasting world peace. Even if during my lifetime it is not achieved, it is all right. The next generation will make more progress. —His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Herein lies the real hope for our future. We are moving toward the ultimate destiny of our species—a state of compassion and love. —Dr. Jane Goodall

If we are serious about ending poverty, we have to be serious about ending the system that creates poverty by robbing the poor of their economic wealth, livelihoods and incomes. Before we can make poverty history, we need to get the history of poverty right. It’s not about how much wealthy nations can give so much as how much less they can take. —Vandana Shiva

	What the world needs most is openness: Open hearts Open doors Open eyes Open minds Open ears Open souls —Robert Muller

WITH OURSELVES

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

When you can argue with reality you lose, but only 100 percent of the time. —Byron Katie

If we can't be happy, what's the use of this life? —His Holiness The Dalai Lama

I believe we have reason to be hopeful for our planet. We must follow our faiths and common sense, which I believe will guide us into the future. —President Jimmy Carter

If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. —Henry David Thoreau

I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance. —Pablo Cassals

My only religion is kindness. —His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. —Matthew 5:9

Let all your work be done with love. —1 Cornthians 16:14

At the risk of sounding ridiculous, I want to say that the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love. —Che Guevara

Being fearless is not being without fear. Being fearless is feeling the fear and stepping forward anyway. It is the courage to look at fear just as it is, without giving it energy and without letting it take control. —Pema Chodron

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.—Terry Tempest Williams

. . . in a dark time the eye begins to see. —Theodore Roethke

Hope is not what we find in evidence, it's what we become in action. —Frances Moore Lappe

	Use it up Wear it out Make it do Do without —Eleanor Roosevelt

Before we buy their shares, we want them to share our values. —PAX World

Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imaginations shared create collaboration, collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change. —Terry Tempest Williams