"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression."---Malcolm X, Bartlett 904:17 %% "The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them."---Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes, sec. 6 - Diogenes the Cynic, Bartlett 86:13 %% "Beauty is the gift of God."---Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, bk. V, sec.17 - Aristotle, Bartlett 86:18 %% "The actuality of thought is life."---Metaphysics, bk XII, ch.7 - Aristotle, Bartlett 87:11 %% "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."--- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, bk. V, sec. 20 ---Aristotle, Bartlett 87:1 %% "To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence."---Nicomachean Ethics, bk. IX, ch. 9 - Aristotle, Bartlett 87:21 %% "A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end."---Poetics ch. 6, Aristotle, Bartlett 88:17 %% "The path of duty lies in what is near, and man seeks for it in what is remote."---Works, bk. iv, I:II, Mencius, Bartlett 89:11 %% "Every nation has the government it deserves."---Letter to X [1811], Joseph de Maistre, Bartlett 400:2 %% "One who is serious all day will never have a good time, while one who is frivolous all day will never establish a household." ---Ptahhotpe, Bartlett 3:10 %% "Better is poverty in the hand of the god, Than wealth in the storehouse; Better is bread with a happy heart Than wealth with vexation." ---Amenemopoe c. Eleventh century B.C., Bartlett 6:6 %% He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hated therewith. --- The Holy Bible:-Proverbs 15:15-17, Bartlett 24:7 %% If the slayer thinks he slays, If the slain thinks he is slain, Both these do not understand: He slays not, is not slain. ---The Upanishads 800-500 B.C., Bartlett 56:25 %% No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.---"The Lion and the Mouse", Aesop fl. c. 500 B.C., Bartlett 66:2 %% "If cattle and horses, or lion, had hands, or were able to draw with their feet and produce the works which men do, horses would draw the forms of gods like horses and cattle like cattle, and they would make the god's bodies the same shape as their own.--- Fragment 15, Xenophanes c.570 - c. 475 B.C. "If triangles had a god, he would have three sides."---Lettres Persanes [Lois [1721], no. 59, Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu 1689-1755, Bartlett's 341:7 "An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult."---Letters to His Son [1774]. October 9, 1746, Philip D. Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Bartlett 341:18 "Wear your learning, like a watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one."---Letters to His Son. February 22, 1748, Philip D. Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Bartlett 342:1 Even an apparently violent action, inflicting suffering on others, as on a battle-field, can be a yoga and therefore spiritual, if the motive is not the aggrandizement of the individual or communal or national ego, but the establishment of truth and justice.---Bhagavad Gita (Nikhilananda, introduction, P. 11 So every duty is an act of worship. Duty performed in this spirit confers joy upon the doer irrespective of success or failure. There is a joy in being made an instrument of God, there is a joy in being used by Him, and there is a joy in being set aside when the instrument is broken or has served its purpose.---Bhagavad Gita (Nikhilananda), introduction P.10 A perfect world, containing goodness or happiness alone, is a contradiction on terms; an undisturbed balance is possible only in the state of dissolution. The act of creation begins precisely when that balance is lost. When everybody will be perfect the world will cease to exist.--Bhagavad Gita (Nikhilandanda), introduction P.11 Through action man attains worldly well-being, and through renunciation the Highest Good. But a man will not seek the Highest Good unless, through experience he has realized the illusory nature of worldly prosperity.---Bhagavad Gita (Nikhilandanda) introduction P.14 An illumined person sees Brahman, or Perfection, everywhere-both within and without. There exists for him no imperfection or evil that he might change or destroy; for if he sees anywhere even a trace of evil, he has not attained the Knowledge of Brahman.--- Bhagavad Gita (Nikhilananda), introduction, P.15 The superior man . . . does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow.---The Confucian Analects, bk. 4:10, Confucius 551-479 B.C., Bartlett 68:15 The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.---The Confucian Analects, bk. 6:20, Confucius 551-479 B.C. The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be make to understand it.---The Confucian Analects, bk. 8:9, Confucius 551-479 B.C., Bartlett 68:25 The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.---The Confucian Analects, bk. 14:3 Confucius 551-479 B.C., Bartlett 69:5 If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.---The Confucian Analects. bk. 15:11, Confucius 551-479 B.C., Bartlett 69:11 To him who is in fear everything rustles.---Acrisius, fragment 58, Sophocles 495:406 B.C., Bartlett 75:19 Dharma: Sanskrit translated into English as "Virtue; Duty; Law." Dharma is the rule of action and life best adapted to the requirements of the individual soul, and best calculated to aid that particular soul in the next highest step in its development. ---Advance Coarse in Yogi Philosophy, by Ramcharaka, P.197 Ethics, the three theories of Ethics among Western people, know as follows: (1) The theory of Revelation; (2) The Theory of Intuition; and, (3) The theory of Utility. from Advance Course in Yogi Philosophy by Yogi Ramacharaka, P.199 Principle of Utility, sometimes referred to as the pleasure principle. The doctrine which holds (a) that pleasure and the absence of pain are in fact desired by all human beings, and (b) that each person seeks his own pleasure. 2. The doctrine that one ought to be that which brings about the greatest happiness (pleasure) to the greatest number of people. see Utilitarianism. from Dictionary of Philosophy, by Peter A. Angeles utilitarianism. Sometimes referred to as the greatest happiness theory. Utilitarianism as a systematic ethical theory was first propounded by Jeremy Bentham and his student John Stuart Mill. Its main tenets are: 1. One should so act as to promote the greatest happiness (pleasure) of the greatest number of people. 2. Pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain is the only intrinsic evil. 3. An act is morally right (a) if it brings about a greater balance of good over evil than any other action, or (b) if it produces as much good in the world as or no less good in than would any other act.---from "Dictionary of Philosophy", by Peter A. Angeles, P.307 All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.---Alexander Pope, Epistle I,l. 267, from Bartlett's 336:21 Stoic School---Founded by Zeno in 308 BC in Athens. For Stoicism, virtue alone is the only good and the virtuous man is the one who has attained happiness through knowledge, as Socrates had taught. The virtuous man thus finds happiness in himself and is independent of the external world which he has succeeded in overcoming by mastering himself, his passions and emotions. The wise man seeks to regulate his life as his highest duty. Doctrine is pantheistic.---Dictionary of Philosophy, D. Runes, P. 318 Zeno the Stoic: (c. 340-365 B.C)---A native of Cyprus and the founder of the Stoic School in Athens. His philosophy was built on the principle that reality is a rational order in which nature is controlled by laws of Reason, interpreted in the vein of pantheism. Men's lives are guided by Providence against which it is futile to resist and to which wise men willingly submit.--- Dictionary of Philosophy, D. Runes, P.359 Panentheism---The concept of God as immanently interpenetrating all nature, yet distinct from it, is the central principal. God possesses self-identity and is independent of the particular objects of nature, though immanent in them. Panentheism differs from Deism which posits only a transcendent God; it also differs from Pantheism which identifies God with nature.---Ideas of the Great Philosophers, Sahakian, P.91 Pantheism---The Pantheists believe in the "to pan" (the all) of classical Greek philosophers, i.e., the idea that only God exists and that all that exists is God. Pantheism assumes various forms. The most common form emphasizes the totality of reality, but the doctrine may refer the universe taken as a whole or to the combined forces (laws) of the universe. Widely accepted among the Hindus of India.---Ideas of the Great Philosophers, Sahakian, P.88 cynic---A School of Greek Philosophy, founded by Antisthenes of Athens, friend of Socrates. Man's true happiness, lies in right and intelligent living, and this constitutes for them also the concept of the virtuous life. ...this right and virtuous life consists in a course of conduct which is as much as possible independent of all events and factors external to man. In extreme cases, such as that of Diogenes, this philosophy expressed in a desire to live the natural life in the midst of the civilized Greek community. ---Dictionary of Philosophy, D. Runes, P. 88 We face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasqueflower is a right as inalienable as free speech.---Aldo Leopold (1886-1948), A Sand County Almanac [1949], forward, Bartletts's 795:9 We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.---Aldo Leopold (1886- 1948), A Sand County Almanac [1949], forward, Bartlett's 795:10 Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. Aldo Leopold (1886-1948), A Sand County Almanac [1949], Part III, The Land Ethic, Bartlett's 795:11 "The water in music the oar forsakes." (see Emerson, 494:6, last line.) The air in music the wing forsakes. All things move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars. John Muir (1838-1914), Letter to Jeanne C. Carr, Yosemite [1874], Bartlett's 637:15 In God's wildness lies the hope of the world - the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. John Muir (1838-1914) Alaska Fragment [1890], Bartlett's 637:16 On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. . . . Let children walk with nature, let then see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed,and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony. John Muir (1838-1914), A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf [1916], Bartlett's 637:17 The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. John Muir (1838-1914), John of the Mountains [1938] Bartlett's 637:18 To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. Theodore Roosevelt, Message to Congress, December 3, 1907, Bartlett's 687:14 Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, or the trees. The Holy Bible: Revelation 7:3 Bartlett's 53:13 The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.---Zeno (335- 263 B.C.), From Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, bk. VII, sec. 87, Bartlett's 91:19 Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the principles of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance . . . to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony, between its tides and the life of man. . . . The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said to be held along the east coast of England from Northumberland to Kent.---Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) The Golden Bough [1922], ch.3, Bartlett's 672:20 Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. . . . The Nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. George Washington (1732-1799) Farewell Address [September 17, 1796], Bartlett's 379:12 Harmony is pure love, for love is complete agreement.---Lope de Vega (1562-1635), Fuenteovejuna [c.1613] act I, l.381, Bartlett's 182:12 Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that...---Robinson Jeffers, Sierra Club ad, 9-89 Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in.---Aldo Leopold, Seirra Club ad, 9-89 The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, (the earth shich bore us and sustains us), the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need - if only we had the eyes to see.---Edwrd Abbey, Sierra Club ad, 9-89 In the middle of the body lives the heart. Invisible threads of trust extend from within to all things. The more the heart expresses the truth of itself the more light is able to flow through the threads. The less fear. Trust (willingness) is the key to fully living in the present.