“Where there’s injustice, I always believe in fighting. The question is: do you fight to change things, or do you fight to punish? For myself I’ve found, as with all such sin, we should leave punishment to God.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“I thought, for years, that the proper response to evil policies was a polite response. Don’t make waves. Even when I was boiling inside, I was smiling—trying stupidly to ignore oppressive institutional failure, believing if I was nice enough, maybe it would correct itself . . . . I should have fought back—placidly, yes, but actively.” — Patricia Raybon
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning . . . . Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.” — Frederick Douglass
“Justice is what love looks like in public.” — Cornel West
“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
“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Put your politics in one hand and Spirit in the other, and fold them together.” – Lorraine Canoe, Mohawk Indian leader
“It just doesn’t make spiritual sense to suggest that the evil all lies “out there” with our adversaries and enemies, and none of it is “in here” with us—embedded in our own attitudes, behaviors, and policies.” ― Jim Wallis
“The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.” – Carl Jung
“These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness, and worship without awareness.” ― Anthony de Mello
“Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain—spiritual and physical pain. …Today we’re so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US — and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself.” ― David Foster Wallace
“Spirituality is not theology or ideology. It is simply a way of life, pure and original as was given by the Most High of Creation. Spirituality is a network linking us to the Most High, the universe, and each other…” ― Haile Selassie I
“A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions. When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic and social institutions, a holy force – the power of wisdom and love in action – is born. This force I define as Sacred Activism.” ― Andrew Harvey
“Religion is for people afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.” ―Vine Deloria, Jr.
“Two of the greatest hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social change. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for, especially the new generation. And the first hunger will empower the second.” ― Jim Wallis
“I call hellfire a threat,” Natasha said, “and ‘love thy neighbor’ a value. But I believe in hell, or something close to it. I think hell is what we get right here on Earth when people trade their spiritual and political values in on spiritual and political threats.” ― David James Duncan
“The spiritual energy of our time, as I’ve come to understand it, is not a rejection of the rational disciplines by which we’ve ordered our common life for many decades – law, politics, economics, science. It is, rather, a realization that these disciplines have a limited scope. They can’t ask ultimate questions…they don’t begin to tell us how to order our astonishments, what matters in life, what matters in a death, how to love, how we can be of service to each other. These are the kinds of questions religion arose to address.” ― Krista Tippett
“There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominantly non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.” – Matt McCormick
“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
“Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strike out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” – Robert F. Kennedy
“…our primary job as Christians is to love people, and we can’t love from behind a barricade. But we have other God-given responsibilities too—to fight against those who make unjust decrees, rob the needy, and deprive the poor of their rights. We can make political the things that are political and make spiritual the things that are spiritual.” ― Alisa Harris
“Quakers believe there’s an inner light in everybody. If we believe that, it’s morally wrong to snuff it out.” — Joseph Olejak
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” ― Lao Tzu
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