“When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayer-books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brains of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of Thus sayeth the Lord.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York, with Susan B. Anthony, on this day in 1869

“The world is new to us every morning – this is God’s gift; and every man should believe he is reborn each day.”

Baal Shem Tov

Contemplation on No-Coming and No-Going by Thich Nhat Hanh,

“This body is not me.
I am not limited by this body,
I am life without boundaries.
I have never been born,
and I have never died.

Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
manifestations from my wondrous true mind.
Since before time, I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey.
Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.

So laugh with me,
hold my hand,
let us say goodbye,
say goodbye to meet again soon.

We meet today.
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source every moment.
We meet each other in all forms of life.”

“Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. For the greatest things grow by God’s Law out of the smallest…

So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.”

Florence Nightingale, raised Unitarian, born on this day in 1820

“If you’re white and you’re wrong, then you’re wrong; if you’re black and you’re wrong, you’re wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green – God make no rules about colour; only society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption and redemption now.”

Bob Marley, who died on this day in 1981

“Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul. So only can you be true to God.”

Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister and abolitionist, who died on this day in 1860

An Unexpected Act of Creative Rebellion by Jackie Stewart,

“The collective wound humans are now ready to heal is the old story that we are not good enough.. Feeling that we are not good enough is so deeply ingrained that we spend a vast majority of our time trying to prove that we are. It drives us to push, strive and succeed. We try to do more and achieve more, even in our leisure time. We need to keep busy to feel successful; we have to prove ourselves over and over. But that old story is fuelling an outdated paradigm that no longer fits the new world we’re here to co-create.

When I was sitting up on the rock opposite our house, watching the birds ride the thermals with freedom and joy, I felt a rising certainty that we change the world every time we rebel against playing the game of busy. We will finally release our impulse to keep busy when we truly believe that we are already perfect and loveable, instead of trying to prove that we are. Realising that we are already good enough is an act of creative rebellion in a success-motivated capitalist world. This is how we co-create a new paradigm that thrives on self-acceptance instead.”

“And now you ask in your heart,
“How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
Good People, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.”

Khalil Gibran

“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness … and, to know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.”

Robert Browning, born on this day in 1812

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

Henry David Thoreau, who died on this day in 1862