Men hate each other because they fear each other,
and they fear each other because they don’t know each other,
and they don’t know each other because they are often separate
from each other.
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
O CHILDREN OF MEN!
Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Such is My counsel to you, O concourse of light! Heed ye this counsel that ye may obtain the fruit of holiness from the tree of wondrous glory.
– Baha’u’llah, The Arabic Hidden Words
I don’t really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me there is a problem and I have to do something about it. I think that is what I would call God in me.
– Wangari Maathai – Nobel Peace Prize
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
– Archbishop Desmond Tutu
All are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Minister and Social Activist
The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.
– Yatsutani Roshi, Japanese Zen Master
All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.
– Kabir, Mystic Poet and Saint of India
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow humans.
– Herman Melville, American Novelist
It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity to comprehend the impressions and emotions which have been experienced by humankind from the beginning. This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense–a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.
– Helen Keller, American Author and Political Activist
We live in succession, in division, in part, in particles. Meantime within us is the soul of the whole; the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Essayist and Poet
It is unity we are talking about, not uniformity. What is needed is to respect one another’s points of view and not to impute unworthy motives to one another or to seek to impugn the integrity of the other. Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another and to cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.
– Desmond Tutu, South African Social Rights Activist
I note the obvious differences between each sort and type, but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
– Maya Angelou, American Author and Poet
God maketh no distinction between the white and the black. If the hearts are pure both are acceptable unto Him. God is no respecter of persons on account of either color or race. All colors are acceptable to Him, be they white, black, or yellow. Inasmuch as all were created in the image of God, we must bring ourselves to realize that all embody divine possibilities…God did not make these divisions. These distinctions have had their origin in man himself. Therefore, as they are against the plan and purpose of reality, they are false and imaginary.
– Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 112, 299
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
– Ta-Nehisi Coates