Albert Einstein

As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness around it. — Albert Einstein

Chalmers Johnson

On the eve of our entry into World War I, William Jennings Bryan, President Woodrow Wilson's first secretary of state, described the United States as "the supreme moral factor in the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's disputes." — Chalmers Johnson

Rabia al-Adawiyya, 8th century Sufi mystic

If I adore You out of fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I adore You out of desire for paradise, lock me out of paradise. But if I adore You alone, do not deny to me Your eternal beauty. — Rabia al-Adawiyya, 8th century Sufi mystic

Dan Finlay

How does blood cleanse, if it is not a matter of revenge? “Washed in the blood of the Lamb” always seems a strange, powerful image to me. I was listening to an old folk spiritual recently, “Wayfaring Stranger,” and I wondered if the wildness and mystery of such traditional Christian images hasn’t gone underground. The song contains this verse: I want to wear a crown of glory When I get home to that good land. I want to shout salvation’s story In concert with the blood-washed band. Shouting salvation’s story has been in vogue lately as a way to secular power, but does our nation, led by a president who calls Jesus his favorite philosopher, still know the difference between a blood-washed and a blood-soaked band? Whatever kind of band we are, the blood has to be hidden. For at the very moment that our society has become more sophisticated at inflicting violence and at fictionalizing it for entertainment, real violence is less visible. — Dan Finlay

Leslie Silko

I will tell you something about stories they aren’t just entertainment they are all we have to fight off illness and death we don’t have anything if we don’t have the stories their evil is mighty, but it can’t stand up to our stories so they try to make us confused or forget them they would like that because then we would become defenseless. — Leslie Silko

Mary Karr

When my thirst got great enough to ask, a stream welled up inside; some jade wave buoyed me forward and I found myself upright in the instant, with a garden inside my own ribs aflourish. There, the arbor leafs. The vines push out plump grapes. You are loved, someone said, take that and eat it. — Mary Karr

Rumi

I look not only at tongue and speech; I look at the spirit and the inward feeling. I look into the heart to see whether it be lowly... Enough of phrases and conceits and metaphors! I want burning, burning... Light up a fire of love in thy soul, Burn all thought and expression away! O Moses, they that know the conventions are of one sort; They whose souls burn are of another. — Rumi

Gerard Manly Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil. It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Whey do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went And, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. — Gerard Manly Hopkins

Vaclav Havel

I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart. Hope is the feeling that life and work have a meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you. Life without hope is an empty, boring, and useless life. I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me. I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself. — Vaclav Havel

Ken Sehested

Discipline is not the vain attempt to be seen and loved by one whose attention or favor we seek. To be disciplined is not to abuse ourselves in order to conform to the expectations of others. Rather, discipline is training in the art of seeing, of paying attention to some things and ignoring others. Discipline happens when the imagined future is powerful enough to shape the experienced present. — Ken Sehested