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In the best sense of the word [Jesus] was a radical. . . . His religion has so long been identified with conservatism — often with conservatism of the obstinate and unyielding sort — that it is almost startling for us sometimes to remember that all the conservatism of His own times was against Him, that it was the young, free, restless, sanguine, progressive part of the people who flocked to Him.

Phillips Brooks

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what the ‘story of the trees’ would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.

Charles R. Skinner

We have always had reluctance to see a tract of land which is empty of men as anything but a void. The “waste howling wilderness” of Deuteronomy is typical. The Oxford Dictionary defines wilderness as wild or uncultivated land which is occupied “only” by wild animals. Places not used by us are “wastes.” Areas not occupied by us are “desolate.” Could the desolation be in the soul of man?

John A. Livingston

On the late-afternoon streets, everyone hurries along, going about their own business. Who is the person walking in front of you on the rain-drenched sidewalk? He is covered with an umbrella, and all you can see is a dark coat and the shoes striking the puddles. And yet this person is the hero of his own life story. He is the love of someone’s life. And what he can do may change the world. Imagine being him for a moment.

And then continue on your own way.

Vera Nazarian

The world is disgracefully managed; one hardly knows to whom to complain.

Ronald Firbank

It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it.

George Orwell

All men think all men mortal but themselves.

Edward Young

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

J. Krishnamurti

I have twenty-one pages, unusable, unprintable, destructive of the book as my mind still partly sees it, contradictory of character and inconsistent in tone. But I am undoubtedly started.

Janet Burroway

Will is the means by which we overcome the problems that life or genes have handed us. Without it, there is no true character.

Jacob Needleman