Charlie > Charlie's Quotes

“I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.”
― Mary Oliver

“It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth -- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up -- that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Love, like light, is a thing that is enacted better than defined: we know it afterward by the traces it leaves on paper.”
― Adam Gopnik

“The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of abusive power. That kind of hope makes one strong.”
― Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
― C.G. Jung

“School Prayer'

In the name of daybreak
And the eyelids of morning
And the wayfaring moon
And the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
My soul with hatred,
But offer myself humbly
As a guardian of nature,
As a healer of misery,
As a messenger of wonder,
As an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors . . .
And the uttermost night . . .
And the crowning seasons
Of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
---wherever and in whatever form
It may dwell---on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.”
― Diane Ackerman

“Dead men make convenient heroes because they cannot rise to challenge the images we would fashion from their lives. And besides it’s easier to build a monument than to build a better world.”
― Rev. Dr. William Barber I

“The slaves didn’t get out of slavery by first figuring out how to get out. They got out by first knowing they needed to get out.”
― Rev. Dr. William Barber I