Maggie's quote for the week of 12/25/05:
"Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas."
--Dale Evans--

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/18/05:
"Never look down on someone...unless you are helping them up."

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/11/05:
We may like to think we have no selfish motives when we tell others of their defects; We may like to think it will be for their benefit – But although what we say may be true, it will only cause them pain. To use only gentle words is my advice from the heart.
--Eleventh advice, from Longchenpa’s Advice for the Heart--

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/4/05:
"Why not feed the people everywhere and let the peace begin. Turn your swords to plowshares everywhere and feed the people."
--Stephen Stills--

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/27/05:
"We must try to develop a more compassionate attitude and reduce hatred or ill feeling toward one another. That is something like inner disarmament. At the same time, external disarmament and internal disarmament should go together side by side. Internal and external disarmament in a combined way, step by step can change the world; the world can be safer, more peaceful, more harmonious. Then the world surely can become a happy human home."
--HH the Dalai Lama, October, 1999--

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/20/05:
"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."
--Martin Luther King Jr.--

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/13/05:
"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us."
--Thich Nhat Hanh--

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/6/05:
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of the country dies with it."
--Edward R. Murrow--

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/30/05:
"We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
--Martin Luther King--

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/23/05:
"It is always simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
--German propaganda chief Herman Goering 1938--

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/16/05:
"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?"
--Eleanor Roosevelt--

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/9/05:
"All tremble at violence, Life is dear to all. Comparing others with oneself One should neither kill nor cause others to kill."
--Dhammapada, v.130--

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/3/05:
An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life.
He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me... it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied... "The one you feed."

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/25/05:
"The most unskillful response to fear is when, perceiving dangers to our own life and property, we believe that we can gain strength and security by destroying the lives and property of others. The delusion pervading our fear makes us lose perspective. If other people (or countries) were to act in this way, we would know that they are wrong. But somehow, when we feel threatened, our standards change, our perspective warps, so that wrong seems right as long as were the ones doing it."
--"Freedom from Fear", Thanissaro Bhikkhu--

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/18/05:
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarisms ... We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace and justice throughout the world. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons and daughters of God."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.--

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/11/05:
"The most unskillful response to fear is when, perceiving dangers to our own life and property, we believe that we can gain strength and security by destroying the lives and property of others. The delusion pervading our fear makes us lose perspective. If other people (or countries) were to act in this way, we would know that they are wrong. But somehow, when we feel threatened, our standards change, our perspective warps, so that wrong seems right as long as we're the ones doing it."
--"Freedom from Fear" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu--

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/4/05:
One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, 0 evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it."
--Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart--

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/28/05:
"Don't put others in their place; put yourself in their place."

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/21/05:
"Those who seem to deserve love least are the ones who need it most."

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/14/05:
A woman is walking down the street when she hears an awful noise and turns a corner to find a man viciously beating a stray dog with a stick. The woman is horrified, stricken with grief for the poor animal. She goes to speak to her priest/lama/teacher about it. She tells him what she witnessed, and pours out her grief to him. In the midst of her anguish, she asks him, "What is compassion?"
He simply answers, "Compassion is when you feel sorry for BOTH of them - the man AND the dog."

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/7/05:
"Ask not if God is on your side. Ask if you are on God's side."

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/31/05:
"When we practice looking deeply, we realize that our home is everywhere."
--Thich Nhat Hanh--

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/24/05:
"Whatever their faith, the wise have always been able to meet each other beyone those boundaries of external forms and conventions which are natural and necessary to human life, but which none-the-less separate humanity."
--Hazrat Inayat Khan--

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/17/05:
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." --The Buddha--

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/10/05:
"Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened."

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/3/05:
"The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings."
--Buddha--

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/26/05:
"My stand is clear: produce to distribute, feed before you eat, give before you take, think of others, before you think of yourself. Only a selfless society based on sharing can be stable and happy. This is the only practical solution. If you do not want it - fight."
--Nisargadatta Maharaj--

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/19/05:
"We are not made up, as we have always supposed, of sucessively enriched packets of our own parts. We are shared, rented, occupied... Without the mitochondria, we would not move a muscle, drum a finger, think a thought."
--Dr. Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell--

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/12/05:
...two people on a Beach...
"Good evening,friend; what are you doing?"
"I'm throwing these starfish back in the ocean.
If I don't, they'll die up here."
"There must be thousands of starfish on this beach.
You can't possibly get to them all.
You can't possibly make a difference."
She smiled, picked up yet another starfish
and threw it into the sea.
"Made a difference to that one!"
--Jack Cornfield and Mark V Hansen--

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/5/05:
"If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work."
--Thich Nhat Hanh--

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/29/05:
"Peace is not simply the absence of violence; it is the cultivation of understanding, insight, and compassion, combined with action."
--Thich Nhat Hanh--

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/22/05:
"I don't know what your desitny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."
--Albert Schweitzer--

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/15/05:
"Those who can control their rising anger as a driver controls a vehicle...those are good drivers; other only hold the reins."
--Dhammapada 222--

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/8/05:
All the suffering in the world arises out of wanting happiness for self. All happiness in the world arises out of wanting happiness for others.

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/1/05:
"True happiness comes not from a limited concern for one's own well-being, or that of those one feels close to, but from developing love and compassion for all sentient beings."
--The Dalai Lama--

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/24/05:
"Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share."
--Dalton Trumbo, author of 'Johnny Got His Gun', in the introduction to the reissue of his book, 1970.--

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/17/05:
"Some people are like big children, harming others without even seeing it. Staying angry with these fools is like being mad at fire because it burns."
--Bodhicharyavatara 6.39--

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/10/05:
"The U.S. public is depoliticized, poorly informed on foreign affairs ... and strongly patriotic in the face of a struggle with "another Hitler". Even though the public is normally averse to war, even with modest propaganda efforts ... the public can be quickly transformed into enthusiastic supporters of war."
--Edward S. Herman--

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/27/05:
"We cry foul over abortion, but of thousands of dead Iraqi children we think nothing."
--Swami Gomuhpuhnanda--

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/20/05:
"What would have happened if millions of American and British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey [part of the Rockefeller empire] managers shipped the enemy's fuel through neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars' worth of business with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan [the Rockefeller family among others?] Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in France with authorization from Dearborn, Michigan? Or that Colonel Sosthenes Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's communications systems and improve the robot bombs that devastated London? Or that ITT built the FockeWulfs that dropped bombs on British and American troops? Or that crucial balI bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated customers in Latin America with the collusion of the vice-chairman of the U.S. War Production Board in partnership with Goering's cousin in Philadelphia when American forces were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored?"
--Charles Higham, author of Trading with the Enemy, about U.S. corporate collaboration with the Nazis during WWII--

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/13/05:
"We may not be strong enough to stop wars when the powers that be want them, but at least we are wise and humane enough to take political and moral stands as publicly as possible. This is, after all, the foundation we must build from."
--Leslie Cagan--

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/6/05:
"The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first.... The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: 'It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war.' Then the few will shout even louder.... Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it... Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies...and each man will be glad of these lies and will study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will bye and bye convince himself that the war is just and he will thank God for a better sleep he enjoys by his self-deception."
--Mark Twain--

Maggie's quote for the week of 2/27/05:
"Better conquering self than a thousand times a thousand enemies... Not by killing does one become noble. By non-killing one becomes noble."
--Dhammapada 103 & 270--

Maggie's quote for the week of 2/20/05:
"If there ceased to be profit in war, war would cease to exist."
--Dick Gregory (quoting another?)--

Maggie's quote for the week of 2/13/05:
"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."
--Albert Einstein--

Maggie's quote for the week of 2/5/05:
"I see no difference between killing a soldier in war and ordinary murder."
--Mark Twain--

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/30/05:
"We must repudiate one of the two, either Christianity with its love of God and one's neighbor, or the state with its armies and wars."
--Leo Nicholaevich Tolstoy, Address, Swedish Government Congress Peace Conference, 1909; "Saturday Review", 8/9/1958--

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/23/05:
This weeks quote is a link to M.L.K.'s "I Had A Dream" speech.

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/16/05:
"Do not seek perfection in a changing world. Instead, perfect your love."
--Jack Kornfield, American Buddhist Teacher, Psychologist, Author--

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/9/05:
"We must say what everybody knows but does not venture to say. We must say that by whatever name men call murder - murder always remains murder and a criminal and shameful thing. And it is only necessary to say that clearly, definitely, and loudly, as we can say it here, and men will cease to see what they thought they saw and will see what is really before their eyes. They will cease to see the service of their country, the heroism of war, military glory, and patriotism, and will see what exists: the naked, criminal business of murder!"
--Leo Nicholaevich Tolstoy, Address, Swedish Government Congress Peace Conference, 1909; Saturday Review, 8/9/1958--

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/2/05:
"Of all the weapons Man has devised to win over the minds of others, none are more powerful than Loving-Kindness"