“I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness that surrounds me.” Sojourner Truth
“No god would want a child killed in his name.” D.S. Mitchell 2023
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” Booker T. Washington
www.chasingthespider.com
“I want to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.” Arthur Ashe
“If people stopped searching for things that offended them and started looking for things that inspired them; what a wonderful world this would be.” Night Owl
“Worry is a waste of valuable time.” D. S. Mitchell 2015
“My favorite old car had no reverse gear. It taught me I could only go forward.” Flavia
“The rain falls because the cloud can no longer handle the weight. The tears fall because the heart can no longer handle the pain.” The Wise You
“Education is the most powerful weapon which we can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela
“My art is my heart.” D. S. Mitchell 2015
“Sometimes when challenged we find out we are capable of the unthinkable.” D. S. Mitchell 2022
“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret between the shadow and soul.” Pablo Neruda
“If now isn’t a good time for the truth I don’t see when we’ll get to it.” Nikki Giovanni
“Let my old days be my best days,” Cousin Lucille
“Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that you are stupid and make bad decisions.” Your mother
“Surround yourself with those on the same mission as you.” Anonymous
“I wonder, if you were blind, lost and confused, would you care what color the offered hand?” D. S. Mitchell 2015
“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” Christian Grey
“Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.” Arthur Rubenstein
“To be happy and contented, count your blessings, not your cash.” Chinese Proverb
RIP RBG
“Studying American politics has taught me several disgusting lessons, the first being, money buys friends in Congress. That alone should terrify the American public.” D. S. Mitchell 2021
“Those who think they can control the mob are fools and are often the victims of their own incitement.” D.S. Mitchell 2021
“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label.” – James Branch Cabell
“I don’t need to attend every argument I’m invited to.” Unknown
“Voting is like a prayer.” Raphael Warnock 2021
Smile
"If puppies and kittens don't make you smile, you might consider therapy." D. S. Mitchell 2015.
“We are all valuable. The problem is not everyone is smart enough to realize it.” D. S. Mitchell 2021
“Outer beauty attracts but inner beauty captivates.” Kate Angell
“Dimming the lights will not hide the social injustice in America.” D. S. Mitchell 2017
“Silence in front of savagery is savagery itself.” Abhijit Naskar
“We can never be too busy to be kind.” D. S. Mitchell 2017
“We only fail when we fail to try.” Rosa Parks
“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” T. S. Eliot
“Every lie is like stepping in a quicksand pit. Every lie as dangerous, as telling the truth.” D. S. Mitchell 2020
“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.” Charles Dickens
“Thoughtful people are slow to anger, not necessarily less efficient in their killing.” D. S. Mitchell 2019
“Endings are not always bad. Most times they’re just beginnings in disguise.” Kim Harrison
“The United States like so many countries around the world has chosen to give to the few and deny the many.” D.S. Mitchell 2020
“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. This is true, its called life.” Terry Pratchett
“Law without humanity is injustice.” D. S. Mitchell 2020
“When people start acting as though the past is the same as the present and context doesn’t matter, things start to get dangerous.” Trevor K. McNeil 2020
“Pardoning the Bad, is injuring the Good.” – Benjamin Franklin
“In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.” James Madison
“Anger helps straighten out a problem like a fan helps straighten out a pile of papers.” Susan Marcotte
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” ― Bruce Lee
“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” Thomas Jefferson
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” Albert Einstein
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The 7 Social Sins are: Wealth without Work; Pleasure without Conscience; Knowledge without Character; Commerce without Morality; Science without Humanity; Worship without Sacrifice; Politics without Principle.” Frederick Lewis Donaldson
“Trickle down economics is like having three dogs and giving one of them a hot dog, and thinking he’ll share.” Bill Maher
“All evils are equal when they are extreme.”-Pierre Corneille
“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.” John F. Kennedy
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” Isaac Asimov
“People without vaginas shouldn’t be able to regulate them.” Unknown
“Let’s just remember that social security is not the government’s money, it belongs to the people who had it taken out of the checks involuntarily their entire working lives.” Mike Huckabee
“Be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” Abraham Lincoln
“I have insecurities of course, but I don’t hang out with anyone who points them out to me.” ADELE
“I have been far oftener discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.” Shirley Chisholm 5/21/1969
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” John Kenneth Galbraith
“Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.” ― George Burns
“What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.” Edward Langley, artist
“The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.” ― George Washington
“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.” ― Albert Einstein
“So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.” ― Kurt Vonnegut
“A politician thinks of the next election – a statesman of the next generation.” – James Freeman Clarke
“Imagination is the bridge between the things we know for sure, and the things we need to believe, when our world becomes unbearable.” Staceyann Chin
“Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.” Coretta Scott King
“Inspiration descends only in flashes to clothe circumstances; it is not stored up in a barrel, like salt herrings to be doled out.”Patrick White
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” Friedrich Nietzsche
“Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.” Doug Larson
“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” ― Nelson Mandela
“Pretty comes in all sizes. My size is cute.” Honey Boo Boo, reality TV star
“If you can’t be a poet, be a poem.” David Carradine
A Poem For Don and Vlad
valuable article
“It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.” Queen Elizabeth II
I Barely Have Time To Walk The Dog
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” ― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves
“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” Helen Keller
“We have, at the heart of our government, a perilous disease, and it is called greed.” D. S. Mitchell 2017
“You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.” MLK
“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear, is the beginning of wisdom.” Bertrand Russell
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” Steve Jobs
“Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.” Unknown
“What befalls earth, befalls all the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it.” Chief Seattle
“Love is like the wind, you can’t see it, but you can feel it.” Nicholas Sparks
“Social Conventions are like Santa Claus. They only exist for those who believe in them.” T. K. McNeil 2021
“It was June, and I saw a bumble bee hovering over a flowering shrub. It’s November now, and I have yet to see a second bumbler hover close to me.” D. S. Mitchell 2021
“Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.” Aubrey De Graf
“If you are planning on revenge, dig two graves.” Confucius
“I weep a lot. Thankfully, I laugh a lot, too. The main thing in one’s own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.” Maya Angelou
“All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.” John F. Kennedy
“People see God everyday, they just don’t recognize him.” Pearl Bailey
“No matter how great your accomplishments, the memory of man is short.” D.S. Mitchell 2021
“No matter how stupid or inane your cause, you can depend on getting at least 30% support from the fucking internet.” David Shadrick 2021
Self-isolating has forced us to turn even more to telecommunication and social media.
“Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn’t commit.” Eli Khamarov
The Major Cause Of Sex Trafficking Is Poverty
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
“Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.” Unknown
“A fierce rage is not always followed by quiet exhaustion. In fact, it sometimes ignites an unstoppable fury.” D. S. Mitchell 2020
“Information is the currency of democracy.” Thomas Jefferson
“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.” Laura Claudette
“The deep political divisions in America do not run between big and small states, but rather, between the North and the South and the coasts and the interior.” D. S. Mitchell 2018
“Dream as if you will live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” James Dean
“Identify your passion and then pursue it recklessly.” D. S. Mitchell 2018
“What we think, we become.” Buddha
“Pain and sadness are often the fruits of intense commitment to a belief or cause. That does not mean you should halt your activity or reject your commitment.” D. S. Mitchell 2017
“When sleeping women wake, mountains move.” Chinese proverb
“To argue with a person who has given up reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Thomas Paine
“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.” Lord Byron
“Certainly in the next fifty years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.” Richard M. Nixon
“I would like to see a time when man loves his fellow man, and forgets his color or his creed. We will never be civilized until that time comes”. Clarence Darrow
“Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.” Harry S. Truman
“Just because nobody complains, doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.” Benny Hill
“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.” Mark Twain
“Politics have no relation to morals.” Niccolo Machiavelli
“May we think of freedom, not as a right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.” Peter Marshall
“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Louis Brandeis
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” Voltaire
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” Ronald Reagan
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” ― Mother Theresa
“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims..but accomplices.” George Orwell
“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” George Orwell
“All I can say for the United States is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.” Will Rogers
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
“It goes without saying that Fox News is not news at all-but pure propaganda geared to an audience of ignorant fools.” Richard Dawkins
“If you’re going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet.” ― Keith Richards
“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.” ― Robert Orben
“Some men see things as they are, and ask, ‘Why?” I dream things that never were, and ask, ‘Why not?” Robert F. Kennedy
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” J. Pierpont Morgan
“The man who has millions will want everything he can get his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.” Samuel Gompers
“Judicial abuse occurs when judges substitute their own political views for the law”. Lamar S. Smith
“When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.” Barack Obama
“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?” ― Mahatma Gandhi
“The problem is that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities–that fact, is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.” Betty Friedan
“A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.” Harry S Truman
“If you see bigotry, oppose it. If you see violence, condemn it. And if you see a bully, stand up to him.” Hillary Rodham Clinton 3/12/16
“The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.” Thomas Paine
“Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.”-Aldous Huxley
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” Plato
“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” Coretta Scott King
“People will dismiss facts, ignore science, and argue the unarguable; if it’s in the interest of their pocketbook.” Yogi Berra
“If you really think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath whilst you count your money.” Dr. Guy McPherson
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan
DEADPOOL QUOTES: 1.) “Never underestimate the stupidity of idiots.” 2.) “Today was about as much fun as a sandpaper dildo.” 3.) “My common sense is tingling.” 4.) “You can’t buy love, but you can rent it for three minutes.” 5.) “I’m gonna eat until I’m tired. Then I’m going to sleep until I’m hungry.” 6.) “I can say chimichanga in seven languages.” 7.) “Do you have an off switch?” 8.) “That’s a face I can sit on.” 9.) “Daddy needs to express some rage.” 10.) “I seriously need a speed bump between my brain and my mouth.” 11.) “I’m a bad guy who is paid to fuck up worse guys.” 12.) “Life is an endless series of train wrecks with only brief commercial like breaks of happiness.” Marvel Comics. Deadpool created by Fabian Nicieza & Rob Liefield
Tools To Quit Smoking Now
Work + Passion + Money = Success
Many great charities, here are a couple that I support: Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, ACLU, and Planned Parenthood.
Dr. King Still Speaks To Us . . . .
Dr. King Still Speaks To Us…
Dr. King Still Speaks To Us…
By Cate & Wes Hessel
The Late Great Dr. King
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stands out among the leaders of the black civil rights movement in the United States. Other members of the “Big Six” who walked alongside Martin were; James Farmer, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and John Lewis. But Dr. King, or MLK, as many refer to him, has become the face of the 1960’s civil rights movement. During his life Martin Luther King was both heralded and condemned.
He Still Speaks To Us
Dr. King’s eloquence still speaks to us, calling us to continue the fight for what is right and just.
The Bible – God’s word
Above all, MLK was a preacher. His belief in the ‘promise’ is rooted in the Scriptures. He spoke from – the Bible. That foundation is most apparent in the following:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
And one paraphrased from his namesake, reformist Martin Luther:
“Live like Jesus died yesterday, rose this morning, and is coming back tomorrow.”
Muster The Mustard Seed
From that bedrock grew seeds of faith:
“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
“I have decided to stick with love…hate is too great a burden to bear.”
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
“We must learn to live together as brothers…or perish together as fools.”
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’”
“Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.” MLK still had a dream.
Belief…
This also extended into conviction and courage:
“You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.”
“It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”
“I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
…And Bravery
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles.”
“And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
“If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”
“Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.” Dr. King was all about God’s love.
The Scales of Justice
And thus proceeds the need for justice:
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
“Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
“So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
“A right delayed is a right denied.”
“..and Justice for All”…
“By The People, For The People”
He also had thoughts on government:
“We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with humanity.” Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the pressing urgencies of the great cause of freedom…a time like this demands great leaders.
“All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’ If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
“I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.” (1963, but still true today)
“I Have a Dream…”
One of the most powerful speeches ever given and the one with which Dr. King is most associated – here is the last section of his “I Have a Dream . . .speech and it’s inescapable wisdom:
“And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
“Let Freedom Ring…”
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”
For the complete text of this masterwork of oration, and an audio recording, please visit https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety.
Related