Other Assorted, Timely, Thoughtful Things to Say at Morning Meetings


When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.


--IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America


To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.


—Polonius (Hamlet, I, iii, 78-80)



I can be myself, follow my dreams, and always do my best.
I can reach for the stars, lend a hand to others, and be a good friend.
I can make a difference!  I promise to try.

 


Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people
can change the world.  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

                    --Margaret Mead



This we know: earth does not belong to man,
man belongs to the earth. All things are connected
like the blood that unites us all.

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

                    —Chief Seattle




You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

                    —Mahatma Gandhi

  Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?

—Martin Luther King, Jr.