"Hopelessness translates into inaction; it translates into surrender to what is feared to be the inevitable. We must all be thinking about what can be done to assure a human future on our planet."
--Walter Cronkite

"We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves."

James Joyce, ULYSSES

"The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others."
- Adolf Hitler

Some Quotes

" When you're told by a medical person or researcher 'This is what you are', that smacks of colonialism. But if you are from a community and you say, 'This is what I want you to call me,' that's what empowerment is all about. "

- Dr. Terry Tafoya

"I have noticed that as soon as you have soldiers the story is called history. Before their arrival it is called myth, folktale, legend, fairy tale, oral poetry, ethnography. After the soldiers arrive, it is called history."

- Paula Gunn Allen

"After all, Lewis and Clark's story has never been just the triumphant tale of two white men, no matter what the white historians might need to believe. Sacagawea was not the primary hero of this story either, no matter what the Native American historians and I might want to believe. The story of Lewis and Clark is also the story of the approximately 45 nameless and faceless first- and second-generation European Americans who joined the journey, then left or completed it, often without monetary or historical compensation. Considering the time and place, I imagine those 45 were illiterate, low-skilled laborers subject to managerial whims and 19th century downsizing. And it is most certainly the story of the black slave York, who also cast votes during this allegedly democratic adventure. It's even the story of Seaman, the domesticated Newfoundland dog who must have been a welcome and friendly presence and who survived the risk of becoming supper during one lean time or another. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was exactly the kind of multicultural, trigenerational, bigendered, animal-friendly, government-supported, partly French-Canadian project that should rightly be celebrated by liberals and castigated by conservatives."

-- Sherman Alexie, in an Time magazine essay entitled "What Sacagewea Means to Me"

"My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short."

-- Armistead Maupin

"Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown."

- Claude Bernard

Their agenda is not just anti-gay and anti-marriage, it's anti-choice, anti-civil rights, anti-separation of church and state, and in fact antediluvian."

-- Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, arguing that religious conservatives' opposition to civil marriage for gays and lesbians is part of their broader agenda.

"Anamchara (ahn-im-KAR-uh) is a Gaelic word that means "soul friend." A soul friend is a person who provides others with coaching, support and guidance as they progress along the path toward fulfilling their spiritual and mystical potential.

"Originally, the ancient Druids functioned as soul friends to the pagan Celtic chieftains; later on, the Christian saints took over this spiritual role, providing direction and guidance to anyone who wished to grow spiritually. Today, anyone can have (or be) a soul friend. A person does not need to be of Celtic ancestry to benefit from having or being an anamchara.

"In its simplest form, a soul friend is anyone who provides spiritual support to another, no matter how humble or "ordinary." In a more formal way, an anamchara is a mentor or a coach -- a person who shares his or her knowledge or expertise with others, usually in a structured way. Such an anamchara may provide his or her services as part of a religious community (such as a Christian minister or a Wiccan priestess) or may work independently (such as a spiritual coach or professional psychic)."

"Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm."
- Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac, 1949