Pacifists

"If I do find pride, I'll not find it in what I was or what I am, but what I may become. Not in my birth, but in myself."

"In the race of men is much greed and envy; but of truth, little."

"“Believe what you like. You'll be surprised how comforting it is.” “I ask no comfort,” Taran replied, “but the truth, be it harsh or happy.”"

"Speak up, my boy. If you want truth, you should begin by giving it."

"The destinies of men are woven one with the other, and you can turn aside from them no more than you can turn aside from your own."

"“So you say, so you say,” murmured Fflewddur, hurrying after him. “Look closer into your heart. You may find your opinion to be somewhat different.”"

"Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be more than what we are."

"“It is easy to judge evil unmixed,” replied Gwydion. “But, alas, in most of us good and bad are closely woven as the threads on a loom; greater wisdom than mine is needed for the judging.”"

"We’re neither good nor evil. We’re simply interested in things as they are."

"Dès 1913, le prix Nobel Otto Heinrich Warburg fut le premier à observer et expliquer que le cancer ne peut se développer dans un milieu riche en oxygène, donc acide. Le prix Nobel Roy Walford observa également que les restrictions caloriques pouvaient augmenter la longevité et la santé."

"In all cultures, it is the task of a religion to close the field of contingency …and to set up havens of the absolute where it is possible to be led from acting to listening, from having to being, from planning to hoping, from judging to forgiving — from the finite into the infinite. A society in which such open spaces of eternity do not exist or are only insufficiently developed dies of itself due to lack of air to breathe."

"After midlife, one falls back on C G Jung and determines that the first years of life were in themselves symbolic. To learn a profession (calling) doesn't mean that you are called. To obtain money doesn't mean that you are rich. To marry doesn't mean that you have learned to love. To build a house doesn't mean that you are at home. All the things you did until you turned forty confront you again after midlife as a task, but this time inwardly."

"Pride is a reaction formation to the feeling of inferiority, of the experience of powerlessness, of not being worthy enough of love. Only anxiety compels a person to lose moderation and to want to be more than he is. Out of fear of being an animal, he has to become an angel. Out of fear of being a nothing, a god. Anxiety never allows him to be simply a man."

"If you want to change people by talking about God, then there is only one way: instead of teaching God, you must live God. Because: “teaching” God is unthinkable in any other way than the way you would teach love or poetry. You teach love only through love, poetry only through writing poetry, faith in God only through a contagious way of trusting."

"People are given a false alternative: the choice between an unenlightened belief and an enlightened unbelief. Most intellectuals seem to pay homage to the second variant."

"Drewermann's contribution is indispensable for two reasons: because he takes mental/spiritual suffering seriously and works for the liberation of those who "all their life long, crippled and cramped by fear, were prevented from risking themselves in life." Secondly, because he does something for the worldwide Church which Latin American liberation theologians cannot achieve but need: he challenges the megainstitution's attempt to stabilize power by means of fear and names authoritarian religion "a form of violence.""

"You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness."

"In my eyes, concepts of theology have only as much value as they are able to interpret experience. It seems to me that we have long reached the point where we theologians only talk to ourselves and debate with our own history of concepts."

"Look at why Jesus strictly avoided speaking the language of the theologians of his day. It’s plain to see what an enormous liberation there lies in hearing something about God in the words of poetry. Imagine that we would speak about God in the music of Mozart and Beethoven or in the pictures of van Gogh... It would be impossible to fight wars over the true faith in the Name of Mozart or van Gogh... The language of poetry, the parables of Jesus, is international. You can’t and mustn’t pour them into dogmas."

"We see in the 20th Century an unfortunate trench warfare, in which psychoanalysis, in a struggle against the internalized compulsion and superstition of a particular doctrine, has expressed itself atheistically. By contrast, theology is not merely under suspicion of talking soullessly about God. Both theology and psychology, in striving for human health, need one another like the right and the left hand."

"We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control."

"O star on the breast of the river! O marvel of bloom and grace! Did you fall right down from heaven, Out of the sweetest place? You are white as the thoughts of an angel, Your heart is steeped in the sun -- Did you grow in the Golden City, My pure and radiant one?” “Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven; None gave me my saintly white; It slowly grew from the darkness, Down in the dreary night. From the ooze of the silent river, I win my glory and grace, White souls fall not, O my poet, They rise to the sweetest place."

"This is the way of peace — overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."

"I deal with spiritual truth which should never be sold and need never be bought. When you are ready it will be given."

"When you approach others in judgement they will be on the defensive. When you are able to approach them in a kindly, loving manner without judgement they will tend to judge themselves and be transformed."

"A PILGRIM IS A WANDERER WITH A PURPOSE. A pilgrimage can be to a place — that's the best known kind — but it can also be for a thing. Mine is for peace, and that is why I am a Peace Pilgrim."

"There is great freedom in simplicity of living."

"Stop being an escapist! Stop being a surface liver who stays right in the froth of the surface. There are millions of these people, and they never find anything really worthwhile. Be willing to face life squarely and get down beneath the surface of life where the verities and realities are to be found."

"I HAD A VERY FAVORABLE BEGINNING, although many of you might not think so. I was born poor on a small farm on the outskirts of a small town, and I'm thankful for that. I was happy in my childhood. I had a woods to play in and a creek to swim in and room to grow. I wish that every child could have growing space because I think children are a little like plants. If they grow too close together they become thin and sickly and never obtain maximum growth. We need room to grow."

"Spiritual truth should never be sold — those who sell it injure themselves spiritually."

"Peace Pilgrim's Pocket" How old are you, Peace?/I am ageless!/Only three things in her pocket/comb toothbrush postage stamps/With those three possessions she lived/so many (secret number) years/making millions of friends/hiking byways and back roads/crossing the nation again and again/town to town thousands of miles/unafraid/"Life is a mirror!/Smile at it, it smiles back!"/woman with a white bun/striding by herself in a navy blue tunic/white tennis shoes/no money no credit cards no tickets/opening her mouth wherever people would listen/"Never stop your efforts for peace!"/walking till someone offered a bed/fasting till they offered food/"Personal peace necessary before world peace! Every good thing you say... vibrates on and on/and never ceases!"/I am standing outside under ageless pecan trees/listening to the voice I first heard in my/parents' living room/as a girl of three/"Would you kill a cow?/The three-year-old said, Never!/"Then how can you eat meat? Why let someone else do your dirty work for you?" She was thrilled to turn kids into vegetarians/"I'm only a little person but/there are lots of little things to be done!"

"In the final analysis you find spiritual truth through your own higher nature. Your higher nature is a drop in the ocean of God - and has access to the ocean. Sometimes your higher nature is awakened through the inspiration of beautiful surroundings or beautiful music, bringing you insights of truth. Sometimes you see the truth written or hear the truth spoken, and your higher nature confirms it. Or you directly perceive the truth from the inside through an awakening of the higher nature, which is my way. All the inspired writing came from the inner source, and you too can receive from that source. Be still and know."

"To attain inner peace you must actually give your life, not just your possessions. When you at last give your life — bringing into alignment your beliefs and the way you live them — then, and only then, can you begin to find inner peace."

"What people really suffer from is immaturity. Among mature people war would not be a problem — it would be impossible. In their immaturity people want, at the same time, peace and the things which make war. However, people can mature just as children grow up. Yes, our institutions and our leaders reflect our immaturity, but as we mature we will elect better leaders and set up better institutions. It always comes back to the thing so many of us wish to avoid — working to improve ourselves."

"You have much more power when you are working for the right thing than when you are working against the wrong thing. And, of course, if the right thing is established wrong things will fade away of their own accord. Grass-roots peace work is vitally important. All who work for peace belong to a special peace fellowship — whether we work together or apart."

"Knowing that all things contrary to God's laws are transient, let us avoid despair and radiate hope for a warless world. Peace is possible, for thoughts have tremendous power. A few really dedicated people can offset the ill effects of masses of out-of-harmony people, so we who work for peace must not falter. We must continue to pray for peace and to act for peace in whatever way we can, we must continue to speak for peace and to live the way of peace; to inspire others, we must continue to think of peace and to know that peace is possible. What we dwell upon we help to bring into manifestation. One little person, giving all of her time to peace, makes news. Many people, giving some of their time, can make history."

"Never think of any right effort as being fruitless. All right effort bears fruit, whether we see the results or not."

"Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God; it is a sincere seeking for a good thing; and it is a concentration on the thing sought, with faith that it is obtainable."

"I am constantly thankful. The world is so beautiful, I am thankful. I have endless energy, I am thankful. I am plugged into the source of Universal Supply, I am thankful. I am plugged into the source of Universal Truth, I am thankful. I have this constant feeling of thankfulness, which is a prayer."

"Please don't say lightly that these are just religious concepts and not practical. These are laws governing human conduct, which apply as rigidly as the law of gravity. When we disregard these laws in any walk of life, chaos results. Through obedience to these laws this world of ours will enter a period of peace and richness of life beyond our fondest dreams. The key word for our time is practice. We have all the light we need, we just need to put it into practice."

"Material things must be put into their proper place. They are there for use. It's all right to use them; that's what they're there for. But when they've outlived their usefulness, be ready to relinquish them and perhaps pass them on to someone who does need them. Anything that you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions. We are not free."

"I shall remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace; walking until given shelter and fasting until given food."

"I travel light; as light, That is, as a man can travel who will Still carry his body around because Of its sentimental value."

"Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement... says heaven and earth in one word... speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time. It has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time."

"I hope I've done nothing so monosyllabic as to cheat, A spade is never so merely a spade as the word Spade would imply."

"I tell you, Miss, I knows an undesirable character When I see one; I've been one myself for years."

"The difference between tragedy and comedy is the difference between experience and intuition. In the experience we strive against every condition of our animal life: against death, against the frustration of ambition, against the instability of human love. In the intuition we trust the arduous eccentricities we're born to, and see the oddness of a creature who has never got acclimatized to being created."

"Try thinking of love, or something. Amor vincit insomnia."

"Coffee in England is just toasted milk."

"What after all Is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean."