Global Quotes

HOME | About Us | Communities | Contact Us | Contribute | Search | Links |

GLOBAL DIALOG PROJECT |

NEWS | QUOTES | INTEGRITYMETER | FREEDOM | HUMOR | War on Terror | MORE TOPICS

Topical Quotes | Global Quotes The quotes below are global in a couple of ways: first, they are gathered from all over the globe, and we invite you to post your own favorite quotes from every culture, arena, and part of the world. Second, although these words were often spoken in a particular context, we have found that their meaning is often more global in scope! So please enjoy. Benevolence is a commitment to achieving the values derivable from life with other people in society, by treating them as potential trading partners, recognizing their humanity, independence, and individuality, and the harmony between their interests and ours. -- David Kelley Everything comes to him who HUSTLES while he waits. -Thomas Edison You must make your mark on this earth,and, if you have never done so,it is simply because you neglected to use the powers you have,or have neglected to develop them. - John Henry Patterson He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. -- Thomas Jefferson The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. -- Aristotle To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life. -- Robert Louis Stevenson Live as you choose, but accept the consequences. - Joseph C. Clark (aka. jomama) Our understanding of the world is achieved more effectively by conceptual improvements than by discovery of new facts... -- Ernst Mayr The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in anyone of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world. -- James Fenimore Cooper Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing. -- George Bernard Shaw I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. -- Thomas Jefferson It can not even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime. -- Albert Jay Nock If you lack the iron and the fizz to take control of your own life, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. -- Tom Robbins Time is precious. Waste it wisely. Chris Golya LOSING FACE The noble art of losing face may one day save the human race and turn into eternal merit what weaker minds would call disgrace. - Piet Hein Peace is a natural effect of trade. -- de Montesquieu When reality becomes unbearable, the mind must withdraw from it and create a world of artificial perfection. Plato's world of pure Ideas and Forms, which alone is to be considered as real, whereas the world of nature which we perceive is merely its cheap Woolworth copy, is a flight into delusion. -- Arthur Koestler Prejudices are what fools use for reason. -- Voltaire ...the first man to use abusive language instead of his fists was the founder of civilization. Sigmund Freud No nation was ever ruined by trade. -- Benjamin Franklin None save great men have been the authors of great heresies. Augustine The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients. -- Eric Hoffer To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition. -- Albert Einstein I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. -- Thomas Jefferson It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs. -- Eric Hoffer Anyone can see a forest fire. Skill lies in sniffing the first smoke. -- Robert Heinlein Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion. -- Mark Twain Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition. -- Thomas Kuhn Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex system for granted, and just improve the things that are not so good. What is lacking in this conception is any sense that a society, an institution, or even a single human being, is an intricate system of fragile inter-relationships, whose complexities are little understood and easily destabilized. -- Thomas Sowell How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization. -- Eric Hoffer Who speaks reason to his fellow man bestows it upon them. -- Richard Mitchell A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear. The thought of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit. -Don Juan Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel. -Horace Walpole A successful conspiracy is eventually called good business. V. Gremillion "What, you ask, was the beginning of it all? And it is this Existence that multiplied itself For sheer delight of being And plunged into numberless trillions of forms So that it might Find Itself Innumerably" - Sri Aurobindo No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. Whenever the secular arm is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic. -- H.L. Mencken Our knowledge and our ability to handle our problems progress through the open conflict of ideas, through the tests of phenomenological adequacy, inner consistency, and practical-moral consequences. Reason may err, but it can be moral. If we must err, let it be on the side of our creativity, our freedom, our betterment -- Rudolph Rummel NEED BETTER FORMATTING STARTING HERE: No man is an island- he is a holon. A Janus-faced entity who, looking inward, s ees himself as a self-contained unique whole, looking outward as a dependent par t. His self-assertive tendency is the dynamic manifestation of his unique whole ness, his autonomy and independence as a holon. Its equally universal antagonis t, the integrative tendency, expresses his dependence on the larger whole to whi ch he belongs: his 'part-ness.' -- Arthur Koestler === A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness. -- Walter Bagehot For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democ racy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary it is the ve ry means of preventing revolution and civil wars. It provides a method for the peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority. -- Ludwig von Mises The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revo lution. -- Hannah Arendt There was never a genius without a tincture of madness. -- Aristotle === ...this is precisely the purpose of censorship- not only to block unwanted views , but to keep people who are unhappy from knowing how many millions of others sh are their unhappiness; to keep the dormant opposition from awakening to its own developing strength. -- Hedrick Smith I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soo n as the facts are shown to be opposed to it. -- Charles Darwin The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the m ost ancient and dangerous of human illusions. -- Robert Lynd There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. An d with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. -- P.J. O'Rourke ==== What is not in nature can never be true. -- Voltaire === For one swallow does not make the summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed or happy. -- Aristotle Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random. -- Richard Dawkins "I can always be distracted by love, but eventually I get horny for my creativity" - Gilda Radner ...economic history is along record of government policies that failed because t hey were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics. -- Ludwig von Mises ==== The fool wonders, the wise man asks. -- Benjamin Disraeli Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular ex ceptions. -- James Fenimore Cooper No nation was ever ruined by trade. === Man cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen. -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne We should listen first and foremost to our own experience...We should stop looki ng for saviors... Society has not existed for thousands of years because it had a succession of saviors. It's existed because it has institutions and processes through which people can realize their own goals. -- Thomas Sowell The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop. -- P.J. O'Rourke === The "private sector" of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; an d...the "public sector" is, in fact, the coercive sector. -- Henry Hazlitt The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one. -- Charles Mackay There is no reason why humanity cannot be served equally by weighty and trivial motives. -- Eric Hoffer The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacke d, but to be ineptly defended. -- Frederic Bastiat In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The lear ned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. -- Eric Hoffer Economics is first and foremost about the thoughts leading up to choice. -- Gerald P. O'Driscoll Get a purge for your brain. It will do better than for your stomach. -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all. -- Elbert Hubbard He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares no t is a slave. -- William Drummond This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the mos t valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the m ind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. -- John Steinbeck There are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping th e truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to wi n a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, l ongstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge. -- Roger Bacon Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. -- Milton Friedman I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happines s to himself from the exercise of power over others. -- Thomas Jefferson Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove t hat the other party is unfit to rule--and both commonly succeed, and are right. -- H.L. Mencken Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself. -- Desiderius Erasmus Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge. -- Alfred North Whitehead One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be sc andalously asinine without harming their reputations. -- Eric Hoffer I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as I dare, and I dare a little mor e as I grow older. -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne === To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. T he desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for pow er is basically an attribute of a "have not" type of self. -- Eric Hoffer Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -- Henri Bergson Social values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a "good thing" to have more of, without limits. All are subject to diminishing returns, and ultimately neg ative returns. -- Thomas Sowell -- Benjamin Franklin You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if pr operly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered. -- Lyndon Johnson ==== We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not understand, and snarl at th e good and beautiful because it lies beyond their sympathies. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ==== Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political libert y; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned a s to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor fr om robbing the rich by violence or votes. -- Will Durant Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or hor ses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be. -- Eric Hoffer Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. -- Charles Fisher === Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gest ures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the fi rst question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions. -- Eric Hoffer The web of this world is woven of Necessity and Chance. Woe to him who has accu stomed himself from his youth up to find something necessary in what is capricio us, and who would ascribe something like reason to Chance and make a religion of surrendering to it. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton Morality, like other inputs into the social process, follows the law of diminish ing returns- meaning ultimately, negative returns. People can be too moral. -- Thomas Sowell Man loses his mind in a crowd, and gains it by himself. Todd Hochman ========= To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men. -- Havelock Ellis ======== ...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are eve rything. -- Eric Hoffer ======= Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon wa nt bread. -- Thomas Jefferson Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ==== "...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road ==== The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, des erving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wrong ed, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or e lse leave the door open to self-contempt. -- Eric Hoffer When the people have no tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one. -- Lord Lytton ====== The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. -- Henri Bergson ====== "The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred" - George Bernard Shaw ===== Who speaks reason to his fellow man bestows it upon them. -- Richard Mitchell Man cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen. -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne There arises from a bad and inapt formation of words, a wonderful obstruction to the mind. -- Francis Bacon Our Techno-Biological World: If our global culture is a brain, then the media is its dysfunctional attention system. As a species, we have Attention Deficit Disorder. -Valerie Gremillion =========== A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension. Oliver Wendell Holmes ======= All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the m ajority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonabl e; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. -- Thomas Jefferson ======= Sit down before a fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. --T.H.Huxley ============== > "[W]e shall continue to have a worsening ecologic > crisis until we reject > the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for > existence save to serve > man." > ~~Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our > Ecologic Crisis", Science > V. 155 No. 3767 (10 March 1967), pp. 1203-1207.] ============= When man interferes with the tao, then the sky becomes filthy, the earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles, and creatures become extinct. Lao Tzu ========= "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." - Albert Einstein =========== >"The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell ========= A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world. - Ralph W. Emerson, 1803 - 1882 ====== Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. - Warren Buffett ======== It's the flock, the grove, that matters. Our responsibility is to species, not to specimens; to communities, not to individuals. - Sara Stein, 1998, Noah's Garden ===== God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. - John Muir ====== He that plants trees loves others beside himself. - Thomas Fuller ====== Just think of the trees: they let the birds perch and fly, with no intention to call them when they come and no longing for their return when they fly away. If people's hearts can be like the trees, they will not be off the Way. - Langya === The best friend of earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on the earth. - Frank Lloyd Wright ===Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds! - Henry David Thoreau It is difficult to place a monetary value on the many vital services that trees provide. However, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection calculates that a single tree that lives for fifty years will contribute service worth nearly $200,000 (in 1994 dollars) to the community during its lifetime. This includes providing oxygen ($31,250), recycling water and regulating humidity ($37,000), controlling air pollution ($62,500), producing protein ($2,500), providing shelter for wildlife ($31,250), and controlling land erosion and fertilizing the soil ($31,250). - Sacred Trees ===== ======= Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed. - George H. Lewis, 1817 - 1878 ===== A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible. - A Welsh proverb ====== A tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself. By sinking its roots deeply into the earth, by accepting the rain that flows towards it, by reaching out to the sun, the tree perfects its character and becomes great. ... Absorb, absorb, absorb. That is the secret of the tree. - Deng Ming-Dao, Everyday Tao, 1996, p. 18. ======== Because they are primeval, because they outlive us, because they are fixed, trees seem to emanate a sense of permanence. And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky. For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them, to haunt about them with the idea that if we could only read their silent riddle rightly we should learn some secret vital to our own lives; or even, more specifically, some secret vital to our real, our lasting and spiritual existence. - Kim Taplin, Tongues in Trees, 1989, p. 14. ======= There are two trees, each yielding its own fruit. One of them is negative....it grows from lack of self-worth and its fruits are fear, anger, envy, bitterness, sorrow - and any other negative emotion. Then there is the tree of positive emotions. Its nutrients include self-forgiveness and a correct self concept. Its fruits are love, joy, acceptance, self-esteem, faith, peace...and other uplifting emotions. - Kathi's Garden ====== "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive..." - Joseph Campbell ========== ECOLOGY: The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. - William Blake, 1799, The Letters ==== Do not be afraid to go out on a limb ... That's where the fruit is. - Anonymous ======================================= THE DALAI LAMA ON THE ENVIRONMENT "Peace and the survival of life on earth as we know it are threatened by human activities that lack a commitment to humanitarian values. Destruction of nature and natural resources results from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth's living things. "Our ancestors viewed the earth as rich and bountiful, which it is. Many people in the past also saw nature as inexhaustibly sustainable, which we know is the case only if we care for it. It is not difficult to forgive destruction in the past that resulted from ignorance. Today, however, we have access to more information, and it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to coming generations." "As people alive today, we must consider future generations: a clean environment is a human rightlike any other. It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than we found it." From- http://www.earthlight.co.nz/hhdl/hhdlspeech.html "The first great peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells 'Wakan-Tanka,' and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.... But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men." - Black Elk Science and philosophy have recognized the interconnectedness of everything. Is this idea beginning to come to flower in the socio-political sphere as well? "Each of us has responsibility for all humankind. It is time for us to think of other people as true brothers and sisters and to be concerned with their welfare, with lessening their suffering. Even if you cannot sacrifice your own benefit entirely, you should not forget the concerns of others. We should think more about the future and benefit of all humanity. Also, if you try to subdue your selfish motives - anger, and so forth - and develop more kindness and compassion for others, ultimately you yourself will benefit more than you would otherwise. So sometimes I say that the wise selfish person should practice this way. Foolish selfish people are always thinking of themselves, and the result is negative. Wise selfish people think of others, help others as much as they can, and the result is that they too receive benefit. This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." - The Dalai Lama Posy ======== > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety > deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin - 1759 > > "The American people must be willing to give up a degree of personal privacy > in exchange for safety and security." - FBI Director Louis Freeh - 1994 > A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear. The thought of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit. -Don Juan Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel. -Horace Walpole "What, you ask, was the beginning of it all? And it is this Existence that multiplied itself For sheer delight of being And plunged into numberless trillions of forms So that it might Find Itself Innumerably" - Sri Aurobindo "There is an almost sensual longing for communion with others who have a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to describe." - Teilhard de Chardin The "silly" question is the first intimation of some totally new development. -- Alfred North Whitehead Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. -- Henry David Thoreau It is highly significant, and indeed almost a rule, that moral courage has its source in identification through one's own sensitivity with the suffering of one's fellow human beings. -- Rollo May If you start to think about your physical or moral condition, you usually find that you are sick. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Hopi Elders The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. Hopi Elders At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. Hopi Elders It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. Hopi Elders

Participant Comments follow below

If yuou have quotes about Integrity please email them to me. Megha 04/03/05 15:58:05 GMT

below

A wise man knows he can do anything. It is a fool that tries to do it all by himself. Daniel J. Haines, February 2005 02/11/05 01:04:28 GMT

With greatness comes responsibility. --Michael Reagan 11/09/04 05:17:05 GMT

Concentrate on what cannot lie: the evidence. -Gil Grissom, CSI, Pilot 11/09/04 05:16:22 GMT

"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." - Abraham Lincoln A. Harken 10/19/04 07:17:50 GMT

"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." - Abraham Lincoln A. Harken 10/19/04 07:13:58 GMT

'The daily things we do' The daily things we do For money or for fun Can disappear like dew Or harden and live on. Strange reciprocity: The circumstance we cause In time gives rise to us, Becomes our memory. Philip Larkin, February 1975 Chris Blantern cblanternATinter-logics.net