Steven is, but is not so. > Steven's Quotes

“I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.”
― Pearl S. Buck

“Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.”
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Alienation as we find it in modern society is almost total… Man has created a world of man-made things as it never existed before. He has constructed a complicated social machine to administer the technical machine he built. The more powerful and gigantic the forces are which he unleashes, the more powerless he feels himself as a human being. He is owned by his creations, and has lost ownership of himself.”
― Erich Fromm

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Wisest is she who knows she does not know.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

“He who allows oppression shares the crime.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation.”
― PEARL S. BUCK

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
― Erich Fromm

“Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. 'Patriotism' is its cult...Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.”
― Erich Fromm

“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Le Prophète

“One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“As long as we are children, we have the ability to experience things around us--but then we grow used to the world. To grow up is to get drunk on sensory experience.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“The Seven Social Sins are:

Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.


From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.”
― Frederick Lewis Donaldson

“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”
― Paulo Freire

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”
― Richard Shaull, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus