"A human being is part of the whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and of a foundation for inner security."
-Albert Einstein
"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
-Albert Einstein
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."
-Benjamin Franklin
"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our touch, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience which reveals the human spirit."
-EE Cummings
"What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough."
-Eugene Delacroix
"It is a heretic that makes the fire, not she which burns in it."
-William Shakespeare
"Puritanism never dies; it lives to kill the freedom of the human spirit in the name of Christian orthodoxy."
-Paul Simmons
"Religion is the only field where many leaders assume all truth has been revealed. …When people in the name of any religion claim to have the sole possession of truth, they have crossed the line from faith to arrogance… Those who practice rigidity and absolutism in the name of religion, whether simply by word or with arms, will not persuade."
-Senator Paul Simon
"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites."
-Thomas Jefferson
"To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life."
-Theodore Roosevelt
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
-Helen Keller
"The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation’s purpose - and is a test of the quality of a nation’s civilization."
-John F Kennedy
"You were created to be completely loved and completely lovable for your whole life. Time cannot blemish your essence, your portion of spirit. But if you lose sight of this essence, you mistake yourself for your experiences. All of us must discover for ourselves that love is a force as real as gravity—it is intended as our natural state."
-Deepak Chopra
"It is the artists of the world, the feelers and the thinkers who will ultimately save us; who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing and shout the big dreams."
-Leonard Bernstein
"The doctrine of rewards and punishment in the after life became a powerful tool in the hands of men who exploited it in their own interest, making it a source of revenue and power."
-E Burdette Backus
"Hell is to look back at the dim, reproachful faces of those who loved us, those whom we betrayed."
-Warwick Deeping
"But for the rebel in his breast,
Had man remained a brute."
-Don Marquis
"Indeed, the sexual politics of fear is harmful to minors."
-Judith Levine
"The children are not faring well right now, and it may be that we’re protecting, denying, anaesthetizing, and scaring them nearly to death."
-James R Kincaid
"Unlike editorial or artistic decision making, censorship of information and ideas, whether in the presumed interests of youth, civil society, or morality in general, is fundamentally contrary to a defining principle of our democracy: that state power should not be used to suppress speech considered subversive or immoral, thus leaving the government in control of all the institutions of culture, the great censor and director of which thoughts are good for us. It is precisely because this is so basic a principle that ‘harm to minors’ has become the primary justification for censorship and classification schemes in the United States."
-Marjorie Heins
"Genuine progress is not the rebellion of the present against the restrictions of the past so much as the breakout of the vital past, through the dead habits, expectations, and routines of the present, into a future that is a rebirth of the past in a new and unpredictable form."
-Frederick Turners
"Happiness is the purpose of life. Our culture, our education, our economy - all human activities - should be meant for that goal. Nothing else."
-Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama
"All who are in touch with the natural world can sense energies, emotions, and intentions of people and animals. If we listen, we can know. All we need to do is give up being in charge. Knowing inside is not something unusual; it is how we are. All humans can have that connection with All-That-Is. The connection is within us."
-Robert Wolff
"Most often experienced in nature during formative years, ecstatic memories (ek statis - standing outside ourselves) of delight or fear, or both, are radioactive jewels buried within us, emitting energy across the years of our lives. They require space, freedom, discovery, and an extravagant display for all five senses, and they give us meaningful images, an internalized core of calm, a sense of integration with nature, and for some, a creative disposition."
-Louise Chawla and Richard Louv
"If you can find an environment where the attention is automatic, you allow directed attention to rest. And that means an environment that’s strong on fascination. The fascination factor associated with nature is restorative, and it helps relieve people from directed-attention fatigue."
-Stephan Kaplan
"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious."
-Aristotle
"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove…but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child."
-Forest Witcraft
"Extremists - Christian, Muslim, conservative, liberal, or whatever - delude themselves and us into thinking that they care about our souls, our rights, our welfare. As more people realize that the real goal of extremists is control, a 'radical center' is emerging, insisting on hearing multiple points of view. How truly American."
-Michael Mauldin
