Quotes

What shall we do, we who are at war but are asked to pretend we are not? — Marvin Bell

You can chase down all your enemies, bring them to their knees, you can bomb the world to pieces but you can't bomb it into peace. — Michael Franti

Linda Wertheimer (National Public Radio): Why did you think that a book of prayers was a good place to start for this kind of conversation about the way we ought to be? Marian Wright Edelman (director of Children’s Defense Fund): Well, I didn’t start out that way. This book [Guide My Feet] kind of wrote itself. As I said in the introduction, I started off trying to write a policy book, and while prayer has been an integral part of my life without which I couldn’t survive, it would never have occurred to me to pray out loud or to write a book about prayer and meditations. But, you know, as I sat down to try to write chapters to respond or struggle with Dr. King’s question in his last book—where do we go from here, chaos of community?—I got terrible writer’s cramp and I would find prayers and meditations tumbling out, and so I just let go and let come out what will, and the result is this. But I think it reflects my own worry about the spiritual famine in our country. I think it reflects the spiritual hunger I sense among young people and older people who feel that there’s something missing in this celebrity crazed, material-thing crazed society, and we’re looking for something deeper. And so it was a spontaneous offering and sharing which is as surprising to me as I’m sure it will be to many readers. — Marian Wright Edelman

"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” missing verse But with the woes of sin and strife The world has suffered long; Beneath the angel-strain have rolled Two thousand years of wrong; And man, at war with man, hears not The love-song, which they bring: O hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing! — Edmund Hamilton Sears, written in the context of the social strife that plagued the country during the approaching Civil War

Que Dios no te de paz, asi gloria. May God deny you peace but give you glory. — Miguel De Unamuno

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. . . . But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. — Lilla Watson, a Brisbane, Australia-based Aboriginal educator and activist

Inspiration and craft plus time and effort minus fear and doubt multiplied by purpose equals song. — Ray Wylie Hubbard

Never confuse movement with action. — Ernest Hemingway

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct. No pressure, no diamonds. Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. The eye sees what it brings the power to see. War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle. Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects. — Thomas Carlyle

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. — Howard Thurman