"To launch an armada against Hussein's own hostages, a people who have not fired a shot at us in anger, seems a crude and poor alternative to shrewd, disciplined diplomacy. Don't get me wrong. Vietnam didn't make me a dove; it made me read the Constitution. That's all. Government's first obligation is to defend its citizens. There's nothing in the Constitution that says it's permissible for a great nation to go hunting for Hussein by killing the people he holds hostage, his own people, who have no choice in the matter, who have done us no harm."Bill Moyers
"There are two ways of spreading light: to be a candle or the mirror that reflects it."Edith Wharton
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if liberal civil servants could muster as much love for unborn children as they do for baby whales or seals or trees? And wouldn't it be great if conservative civil servants realized that Jesus' command to love applies to criminals and refugees as much as it does to middle-class Christians and the unborn?"Archbishop Renato R. Martino
"There is a method to the G.O.P.'s tax cut madness, beyond the obvious benefits to the very rich. Conservatives have long reasoned that the only way to destroy popular programs that actually help ordinary Americans (Social Security, Medicare and so on) is to starve the government of the money needed to pay for them."Bob Herbert
"Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own."Charles Scribner III
"Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs… Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction."Helen Keller
"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."Winston Churchill
"Envisioning the future comes from seeing its seeds in the present. This is what God sees and what you ask God to let you see."Living Liturgy 2002
"It's not enough that we bolster America's shaky image abroad, as a new Council on Foreign Relations report urges. The United States must also seek to better understand the peoples of the world, their fears and aspirations."Michael Holtzman
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."G.K. Chesterton
"History suggests that focusing on the moral deficiencies of other peoples simply underscores our own."Nicholas Kristoff
"You can always rely on America to do the right thing. Once it has exhausted the alternatives."Winston Churchill
"Humans are social. We judge our own situations very much in comparison to others around us. It is not surprising that people experience less stress, more peace of mind, and feel happier in an environment with more social cohesion and more equality."Juliet Schor
"They who want to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come into conflict with it."Blessed Titus Brandsma
"If the governments of the richest countries spend more on their own increased security measures than on the development needs of the world's poorest peoples, they will frustrate the aspirations of the poor majorities and avoid the major economic changes required of the North to meet the Millennium Development Goals."Canadian Bishops Conference
"We respond very generously when the network news tells us of hurricanes and famines, but how will we help those victimized by the often less visible disasters of poverty caused by structural injustice, such as debt, ethnic conflict, and the arms trade? Our Church and parishes must call us anew to sacrifice and concern for a new generation of children who need food, justice, peace, and the Gospel. A central task for the next century is building families of faith that reach beyond national boundaries."U.S. Catholic Bishops
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."George Bernard Shaw
A quote for Holy Thursday: "The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the question of bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question."Nikolai Bordyaev
"The church says priests must be male because Jesus' apostles were male. So should women have stayed out of U.S. government because the founding fathers were male?Maureen Dowd"Celibacy is not church doctrine but a tradition from the Middle Ages. By that logic, hospitals would still be using leeches.
"It is love that prompted Jesus to die on the cross. It is love that should motivate the good I do my neighbor: 'If mountains can be moved by faith, is there any less power in love?'" (Frederick Faber)James C. Turro
"We can either 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
If today I and a billion other Christians were, for the sake of our brothers and sisters, to stop looking for material comfort, what would happen to the world? There might be economic chaos. There might also be an end to hunger and injustice. The world would be turned upside down."Bill Grimm
"We have to go after poverty; we have to go after despair; we have to go after hopelessness. We have to put hope back in the hearts of people. We have to show people who might move in the direction of terrorism that there is a better way."Secretary of State Colin Powell
"I suggest that the foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modern sense, because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man. It could well be that rich people treasure peace more highly than poor people, but only if they feel utterly secure--and this is a contradiction in terms. Their wealth depends on making inordinately large demands on limited world resources and thus puts them on an unavoidable collision course--not primarily with the poor (who are weak and defenceless) but with other rich people."E.F. Schumacher
"Our ability to offer hospitality, a space in our lives and homes to others, is the sign of our Christianity."Henri Nouwen
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