"Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away."  --Frida Kahlo

"Some people wanted to know why the Bishop of Rome wished to be called Francis. Some thought of Francis Xavier, Francis De Sales, and also Francis of Assisi. I will tell you the story. During the election, I was seated next to the Archbishop Emeritus of São Paolo and Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Claudio Hummes: a good friend, a good friend! When things were looking dangerous, he encouraged me. And when the votes reached two thirds, there was the usual applause, because the Pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss, and said: “Don't forget the poor!” And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. For me, he is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation; these days we do not have a very good relationship with creation, do we? He is the man who gives us this spirit of peace, the poor man … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!" --Pope Francis, 16 March 2013

"The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention."  --Anon

“Individual action isn’t enough” does not mean “individual action doesn’t matter.”--Pala Najana

"How much good it does a person if one is in a gloomy mood to walk on the empty beach and look into the grey-green sea with the long white lines of the waves."  --Vincent to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, 10 December 1882

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”  --Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

"Our own reactions on the world, small as they are in bulk, are integral parts of the whole thing."  --William James