International Day of Peace

“It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Be grateful for your life,
every detail of it,
and your face will come to shine like the sun,
and everyone who sees it will be made glad and peaceful.
Persist in gratitude,
and you will slowly become one
with the Sun of Love,
and Love will shine through you
its all – healing joy.
The path of gratitude
is not for children;
it is path of tender heroes,
of the heroes of tenderness who,
whatever happens,
keep burning
on the altar of their hearts
the flame of adoration.”

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207 – 1273)

“To be happy, we have to learn to live simply. When we live simply, we have much more time, and we can be in touch with the many wonders of life. Living simply is the criterion for the new culture, the new civilization. With the development of technology, people lead more and more complicated lives. Shopping has replaced other activities as a way to satisfy ourselves. To be happy you must live simply, with harmony and peace in yourself and with the people around you.”

From Peace Is This Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh

“We do not need to invent sustainable human communities. We can learn from societies that have lived sustainably for centuries. We can also model communities after nature’s ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its technologies and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life.”

Fritjof Capra, physicist and deep ecologist

“Human beings are very frail.. Wise people seek out the company of others, so they can support one another as they walk.”

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179), abbess, composer, healer, mystic, preacher, and visionary, whose Feast Day is celebrated today

Art work by Peder Severin Krøyer

“Do not be impatient with your seemingly slow progress. Do not try to run faster than you presently can. If you are studying, reflecting and trying, you are making progress whether you are aware of it or not. A traveler walking the road in the darkness of night is still going forward. Someday, some way, everything will break open, like the natural unfolding of a rosebud.”

Vernon Howard (1918 – 1992), writer and philosopher

International Day of Democracy

“Oh, democracy…. That’s a word that means different things everywhere. One thing’s certain, it never means what the Greeks originally meant by it.”

From Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976), born on this day

“I think it’s a deep consolation to know that spiders dream, that monkeys tease predators, that dolphins have accents, that lions can be scared silly by a lone mongoose, that otters hold hands, and ants bury their dead. That there isn’t their life and our life. Nor your life and my life. That it’s just one teetering and endless thread and all of us, all of us, are entangled with it as deep as entanglement goes.”

Kate Forster

“Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.”

From Matilda by Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990), born on this day

“Western man has been turning outwards to the world of the senses for centuries and losing himself in outer space. He has to learn again to turn inwards and find his Self. He has to learn to explore not outer space but the inner space within the heart, to make that long and difficult journey to the Centre, to the inner depth and height of being, which Dante described in the Divine Comedy compared with which the exploration of the moon and the other planets is the play of children.

Each man must therefore discover this Centre in himself, this Ground of his being, this Law of his life. It is hidden in the depths of every soul, waiting to be discovered. It is the treasure hidden in a field, the pearl of great price. It is the one thing which is necessary, which can satisfy all our desires and answer all our needs… It is the original paradise from which we have all come.”

Bede Griffiths, aka Swami Dayananda (1906 – 1993), mystic monk, quoted in Christian Mystics by Matthew Fox