Fear and Love ~ John Lennon

"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."
— John Lennon

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon

Live for Today ~ Albert Einstein

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning."
— Albert Einstein

More at   http://www.adherents.com/people/pe/Albert_Einstein.html

Feeling of Wonder ~ John Burroughs

"Science tends more and more to reveal to us the unity that underlies the diversity of nature. We must have diversity in our practical lives; we must seize Nature by many handles. But our intellectual lives demand unity, demand simplicity amid all this complexity. Our religious lives demand the same. Amid all the diversity of creeds and sects we are coming more and more to see that religion is one, that verbal differences and ceremonies are unimportant, and that the fundamental agreements are alone significant. Religion as a key or passport to some other world has had its day; as a mere set of statements or dogmas about the Infinite mystery it has had its day. Science makes us more and more at home in this world, and is coming more and more, to the intuitional mind, to have a religious value. Science kills credulity and superstition but to the well-balanced mind it enhances the feeling of wonder, of veneration, and of kinship which we feel in the presence of the marvelous universe. It quiets our fears and apprehensions, it pours oil upon the troubled waters of our lives, and reconciles us to the world as it is."

John Burroughs (1837 - 1921)

More at  ~ http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/

Temptations of Technology ~ Margaret Mead

"No society has ever yet been able to handle the temptations of technology to mastery, to waste, to exuberance, to exploration and exploitation. We have to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something that's fragile, that's only one, it's all we have. We have to use our scientific knowledge to correct the dangers that have come from science and technology."

Margaret Mead

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead

Shema ~ Primo Levi

You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to remember
Eyes empty and womb cold
As a frog in winter.

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house, when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.


More at  http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/primo_levi_2004_9.pdf

Keep the Knowledge Clear ~ Frances Irene Taber

"It may surprise some of us to hear that the first generation of Friends did not have a testimony for simplicity. They came upon a faith which cut to the root of the way they saw life, radically reorienting it. They saw that all they did must flow directly from what they experienced as true, and that if it did not, both the knowing and the doing became false. In order to keep the knowledge clear and the doing true, they stripped away anything which seemed to get in the way. They called those things superfluities, and it is this radical process of stripping for clear-seeing which we now term simplicity."

 ~ Frances Irene Taber, 1985

More at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/iowayoders/galleries/72157623798810025

Simplicity, Patience, Compassion— Laozi (Tao Te Ching)

"Simplicity, patience, compassion. 
These three are your greatest treasures. 
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. 
Patient with both friends and enemies, 
you accord with the way things are. 
Compassionate toward yourself, 
you reconcile all beings in the world." 

— Laozi (Tao Te Ching)

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching

No Meat ~ H G Wells

"In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to be, but now we cannot stand the thought of slaughterhouses. And it is impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig.I can still remember as a boy the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughterhouse."

-- H G Wells - A Modern Utopia

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

Robert Burns ~ On Nature

"When Nature her great masterpiece designed,

And framed her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the wondrous plan,
She formed of various stuff the various Man."

"The voice of Nature loudly cries,
And many a message from the skies,
That something in us never dies"

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns

Multiple Strands ~ Henry Joel Cadbury

“Present-day Quakerism owes a special debt to those interpreters who do justice to more than one of its multiple strands, the mystical, the evangelical, the rational and the social….It would be a pity if the natural variety in Quakerism were artificially restrained. Even unconsciously we are subject to powerful tendencies to conform to a single standard in religion as well as in other ideologies and practices. If the role of Quakerism among the denominations is precisely one of enriching the variety and challenging their standards of uniformity, we ought by the same token to welcome variety within our own small body and ought to object to the impoverishing effect of attempting to get ourselves and our fellow Quakers into one mould.” 


Henry Joel Cadbury

More at   http://www.nontheistfriends.org/article/henry-joel-cadbury-no-assurance-of-god-or-immortality-with-added-notes/

The Eye of the Man ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

More at  http://www.transcendentalists.com/1emerson.html

Non-violence is Love ~ Badshah Khan

"Today’s world is traveling in some strange direction. You see that the world is going toward destruction and violence. And the specialty of violence is to create hatred among people and to create fear. I am a believer in non-violence and I say that no peace or tranquility will descend upon the people of the world until non-violence is practiced, because non-violence is love and it stirs courage in people.
There is advantage only in construction. I want to tell you categorically I will not support anybody in destruction."

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Abdul_Ghaffar_Khan

The Real Things Haven't Changed ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

"The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong."

— Laura Ingalls Wilder

More at   http://www.lauraingallswilderhome.com/

Artwork from Nancy Griswold
https://pixels.com/profiles/nancy-griswold

Beneficent Creation ~ Arthur Henry King

"My first real discovery of nature in life came one morning in April 1916. My father put me on the back of his bike, where I had a little seat, and said, "Off we go." And then he turned in the wrong direction for I thought he was taking me down to Quakers' meeting--it was a Sunday. "No," he said, "we are going somewhere else today." And we rode for about eight miles, and we stopped at a wood...."
"We went into the wood; and there, suddenly, was a great pool of bluebells stretching for perhaps a hundred yards in the shade of the oak trees. And I could scarcely breathe because the impression was so great. The experience then was just the bluebells and the scent; now, when I recall it, it is also the love of my father who chose to do that that morning--to give me that experience. I am sure he had been there the day before, found it, and thought, "I'll take my son there." As we rode there and as we rode back, we heard the distant thud of the guns at the Battle of the Somme, where thousands were dying every day. That overwhelming experience of a natural phenomenon, a demonstration of beneficent creation, and at the same time hearing those guns on the Somme--that experience has remained with me almost more clearly than anything else in my life. " 

~ Arthur Henry King

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Henry_King

Escape Like Squirrels ~ D.H. Lawrence

"When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. 

Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper."

~ D.H. Lawrence

More at  http://www.lawrenceseastwood.co.uk/

My Voice ~ Cat Chapin-Bishop

"How do we manage to have this conversation without arrogance?  How do we listen for the voice of God speaking through one another, the unwelcome words as well as the comfortable ones?  Is it possible for us to keep our fellowship faithfully enough that we will be led, in the end, to a place of greater justice of all kinds--not just the kinds we are individually sensitized towards?

I believe it is.  My voice, from the extreme liberal fringes of the worldwide Quaker movement, counts for very little.  That's all right.  There are others who can say what I lack the skill or the standing to say."  


More from this outstanding article at:-
http://badquakerbible.blogspot.com/2011/01/let-justice-roll-down-like-waters.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

About Suffering — Thomas Kelly

"To you I speak with much hesitation about suffering. . . . But there is an introduction to suffering which comes with the birthpains of love. And in such suffering one finds for the first time how deep and profound is the nature and meaning of life. And in such suffering one sees, as if one’s eye were newly opened upon a blinding light, . . . And there too is suffering, but there, above all, is peace and victory." 

— Thomas Kelly

Without Each Other ~ Martin Luther King

“We have inherited a big house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other. This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.”

Dr King meeting Quakers in 1959

More at  http://quakeruniversalist.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/martin-luther-king-and-universalism/ 

What I Can Do ~ Edward Everett Hale

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do."

-Edward Everett Hale

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Everett_Hale

God is Their Guest ~ Bernard Canter

"To find religion itself, you must look inside people and inside yourself. And there, if you find even the tiniest grain of true love, you may be on the right scent. Millions of people have it and don’t know what it is they have. God is their guest, but they haven’t the faintest idea that s/he is in the house. So you mustn’t only look where God is confessed and acknowledged. You must look everywhere to find the real religion... Living with God is not an apparition but a wordless and endless sureness. Like the silence of two friends together."
 
Bernard Canter, (1962)

More at   http://qfp.quakerweb.org.uk/qfsources-26.html

Chaos to Order ~ Melody Beattie

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Beattie

Voluntary Simplicity ~ Carol Holst

"The simplicity movement, is about countering the spiraling complexities of our world in such a way that people can find balance and satisfaction and fulfillment in ways that have much deeper meaning for them, not only for ourselves but for our children. It helps redefine who we are as people."

"First of all, we are addressing voluntary simplicity, working with people who already have enough. We have choices, so by definition that makes us elite in the world. I feel it's all the more important to work with this community, this privileged community of choice, since it represents a new way to reduce the gap between rich and poor."

~ Carol Holst

More at   http://www.uuworld.org/2005/02/feature3.html

Artwork by http://hilke.macintyre-art.com/linocuts/

All our Hopes ~ John F. Kennedy

"But peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings."

      John F. Kennedy 

More at   http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Talk:John_F._Kennedy's_Address_Before_the_18th_General_Assembly_of_the_United_Nations

George Fox on Winter

"And Friends, though you may have tasted of the power and been convinced and have felt the light, yet afterwards you may feel winter storms, tempests, and hail, and be frozen, in frost and cold and a wilderness and temptations. Be patient and still in the power and still in the light that doth convince you, to keep your minds to God; in that be quiet, that you may come to the summer, that your flight be not in the winter. For if you sit still in the patience which overcomes in the power of God, there will be no flying. For the husbandman, after he hath sown his seed, he is patient. For by the power and by the light you will come to see through and feel over winter storms, tempests, and all the coldness, barrenness, emptyness. And the same light and power will go over the tempter’s head, which power and light were before he was. And so in the light standing still you will see your salvation, you will see the Lord’s strength, you will feel the small rain, you will feel the fresh springs . . ."

~ George Fox

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fox

Artwork from Mark Herald https://www.birchamgallery.co.uk/catalogue/artist/Mark:Hearld/biography/

Moral Turmoil ~ Paul Lacey

"We can protect ourselves from the moral turmoil of considering whether we ourselves might perpetrate such evil. Or we can reject the question and decide that we are dealing with inhuman monsters against whom any defence is legitimate. But if neither of those evasions satisfies our consciences, we will ask ourselves what could bring anyone to choose to commit terror."

~Paul Lacey

More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jun/04/quakers-terrorism-violence

Artwork from Peter O. Zierlein http://www.peterozierlein.com/

Each Movement - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To the attentive eye, each movement of the year has it's own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson

Love Enveloping ~ Thomas R. Kelly

"The life that intends to be wholly obedient, wholly submissive, wholly listening, is astonishing in its completeness. Its joys are ravishing, it peace profound, its humility the deepest, its power world-shaking, its love enveloping, its simplicity that of a trusting child."

Thomas R. Kelly

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Raymond_Kelly_(Quaker_mystic)

The Thirteenth day of Christmas ~ Charles Causley

"On the thirteenth day of Christmas

I saw King Jesus go

About the plain beyond my pane

Wearing his cap of snow.

Sad was his brow as the snow-sky

While all the world made merry,

In the black air his wounds burned bare

As the fire in the holly berry.

At all the weeping windows

The greedy children gather

And laugh at the clown in his white nightgown

In the wicked winter weather.

I dragged the desperate city,

I swagged the combing light

I stood alone at the empty throne

At the ninth hour of night.

On the thirteenth day of Christmas

When the greasy guns bellow

His eye is dry as the splitting sky

And his face is yellow."

(c) The estate of Charles Causley

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Causley

Artwork from Walter J.Phillips  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_J._Phillips

Inner Stillness ~ Tom Robinson

"For me the focused, expectant silence of the meeting was like nothing I'd ever experienced. Birdsong or traffic noises would mingle with the occasional cough, or creak of a seat, within the room. And after perhaps ten minutes there would be a sense of the silence deepening - like a coastal shelf falling away beneath our feet. A profound, inner stillness would descend as fidgeting diminished and superficial sounds receded into the background."
Tom Robinson

More at  http://www.tomrobinson.com/

Vegetarianism ~ Thomas Moore

"The Utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable. "

Thomas More

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)

What Life Means- Forrest Church

"My definition of religion is simple and inclusive: Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and knowing we must die. We humans are not the animal with tools or the animal with advanced language. We are the religious animal. Knowing we must die, we question what life means. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? And, most important of all—in part because we can answer it directly, in deeds of love and works of praise—How can I live in such a way that my life will prove worth dying for?"

More at   http://forrestchurch.com/writings/sermons/unfinished-business.html

Freedom of Expression ~ Albert Einstein

"Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population."

- Albert Einstein

More at   http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pp-einstein.html

Inexhaustible Measure ~ Dan Seeger

"People of faith everywhere are engaged in a common journey, a pilgrimage, to discover within themselves this Word and its revelation of the universal and eternal things upon which all right living and true peace is based. There are many paths possible on this journey of search and one of them always opens up to those who selflessly seek after it. For it is one of the characteristics of Truth that those who thirst after it eventually come to partake of it and to express it, as if the price at which Truth is bought is the sincere and pure longing for It itself. This is why we are promised that those who seek will surely find. 

Let us, as Friends, then, share with all other people of faith the confidence that, having already found something that is supremely good, there is something more of inexhaustible measure which, together with them, we have yet to achieve."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Seeger