I love quotes. There are a zillion more that I could add and probably will, but for the moment, hopefully some of these will speak to your hearts.
"Great ideas come into the world as gently as doves. Perhaps, then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear, amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirrings of life and hope. Some will say that this hope lies in a nation; others in a man. I believe, rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of solitary individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history....Each and every man, on the foundation of his own suffering and joys, builds for all." ~~ Albert Camus
"Charles A. Beard, an American historian, was once asked by a student if he could sum up in five minutes everything he had learned in a half century of teaching and writing...
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, to whom I put the question in 1958 at his jungle hospital in Lambarene, said the one thing he had learned in his life was that he had learned nothing. Then he asked if he could think further on the question. The next morning, he said he thought he had perhaps learned a few things after all. He leaned forward and ticked them off on his fingers:
1) If you have something difficult to do, don't expect people to roll stones out of your way.
2) It is not necessary to go off on a tour of great cathedrals in order to find the Deity. Look within. You have to sit still to do it.
3) Reverence for life is where religion and philosophy can meet and where society must try to go.
4) The misery I have seen gives me strength, and faith in my fellow man supports my confidence in the future."
~~Norman Cousins in HUMAN OPTIONS quoting Schweitzer
Problems are opportunities in work clothes. ~~Henry John Kaiser 
Watch what you say - Subconscious is Listening... ~~ my friend MJClair
Even raw and messy emotions are a form of light, crackling, bursting with energy. We can use that light of rage in a positive way, in order to see into places we cannot usually see. ~~Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Asked the question, "Is it easy to love God?," C.S.Lewis responded, "It is for those who do it."
I know God won't give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much. ~~Mother Teresa
And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge,
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
~~ Chapter on Self Knowledge from THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran
And I said to God, give me a light, that I might stay on the paty. And God said, "My child, step out into the darkness and put your hand in mine. And that shall be to you as good as a light, and as sure as a known way." ~~King George V
Someone just posted this one at a bulletin board I visit. It touches my soul...
"Ask Me"
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
~~William Stafford
~~~~~
Right now (Sept 16, 2001 - 5 days after the World Trade Center attacks) there is talk of war. I hope we only talk and don't act on our feelings of the moment. This is a poem that reminds us what war really is. It's by Wilfred Owens and was written during World War I.
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flund'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: *Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*~~ Wilfred Owens
*It is sweet and good to die for one's country.
~~~~~ Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction . . . The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the darkness of anihilation. ~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
~~~~~ This is a very sweet poem which has touched my life often. I've seen it attributed to a number of people but I think the author is unknown. At any rate, I'm leaving it as anonymous since I don't know which of the claimants is the real one.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.~~ Author Unknown
~~~~~
~~ Ancient Inca Prayer (from In The Trail of The Wind)With Rejoicing mouth,
with rejoicing tongue,
by day
and tonight
you will call.
Fasting, you will sing
with the voice of the lark
and perhaps
in our happiness,
in our delight,
from some place in the world,
the creator of man,
the Lord All-powerful,
will hear you.
"Ay!" he will say to you,
and you
wherever you are
and thus forever
with no other lord but him
will live, will be.