Inspirational quotes for the Third Sunday of Advent
- “Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me”
“Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.”
- Mary Jane Oliver, (September 10, 1935-January 17, 2019),
American poet, won the National Book
Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.
Inspirational quotes of Gratitude
- “‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.”
- Alice Walker, American author,
poet, social activist.
- “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”
- Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928-May 28, 2014),
American poet, singer, memoirist,
civil rights activist.
- “Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity; it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”
- William Faulkner (September 25, 1897-July 6, 1962),
American writer, Nobel Prize laureate.
- “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
- Mark Twain (b. Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
November 30, 1835-April 21, 1910)
American writer, humorist,
publisher, lecturer.
Frederick Douglass
- “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
- Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14,
1818-February 20, 1895), American social reformer, abolitionist, suffragist,
author, orator, statesman. Was born into slavery, and, without his approval,
he became the first African American nominated for U.S. Vice President,
running mate of Victoria Woodhull, for the Equal Rights Party.
- “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
- Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14,
1818-February 20, 1895), American social reformer, abolitionist, suffragist,
author, orator, statesman. Was born into slavery, and, without his approval,
he became the first African American nominated for U.S. Vice President,
running mate of Victoria Woodhull, for the Equal Rights Party.
- “No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”
- Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14,
1818-February 20, 1895), American social reformer, abolitionist, suffragist,
author, orator, statesman. Was born into slavery, and, without his approval,
he became the first African American nominated for U.S. Vice President,
running mate of Victoria Woodhull, for the Equal Rights Party.
- “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
- Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14,
1818-February 20, 1895), American social reformer, abolitionist, suffragist,
author, orator, statesman. Was born into slavery, and, without his approval,
he became the first African American nominated for U.S. Vice President,
running mate of Victoria Woodhull, for the Equal Rights Party.
Harriet Tubman
- “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
- Harriet Tubman (birthdate unknown-March 10, 1913), American
abolitionist, political activist. Born into slavery, she escaped
and later rescued about 80 slaves on the “Underground
Railroad,” and about 750 slaves during the Civil War.
- “God’s time is always near. God gave me my strength and God set the North Star in the heavens; God meant I should be free.”
- Harriet Tubman (birthdate unknown-March 10, 1913), American
abolitionist, political activist. Born into slavery, she escaped
and later rescued about 80 slaves on the “Underground
Railroad,” and about 750 slaves during the Civil War.
- “Twant me, ’twas the Lord. I always told God, ‘I trust to you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,’ and God always did.”
- Harriet Tubman (birthdate unknown-March 10, 1913), American
abolitionist, political activist. Born into slavery, she escaped
and later rescued about 80 slaves on the “Underground
Railroad,” and about 750 slaves during the Civil War.
- “The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.”
- Steve Biko (December 18, 1946-September 12, 1977)
South African anti-apartheid activist.
- “She remembered who she was and the game changed.”
- Lalah Deliah, spiritual writer, wellness educator
- “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering, and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
- Shirley Chisholm (November 30, 1924-January 1, 2005),
American politician, educator, author. First black woman
elected to the United States Congress, 1968.
- “Don’t agonize, Organize.
- Florynce Kennedy (February 11, 1916-December 21, 2000),
American lawyer, feminist, civil rights advocate, lecturer, activist.
Langston Hughes
- “So since I’m still here livin’, I guess I will live on. I could’ve died for love … But for livin’ I was born.”
- James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902-May 22, 1967)
American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist.
- “Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly.”
- James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902-May 22, 1967)
American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist.
- “Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.”
- James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902-May 22, 1967)
American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist.
- “Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see,
That without the dust, the rainbow would not be.”
- James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902-May 22, 1967)
American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist.
- “I swear to the Lord, I still can’t see, Why Democracy means, Everybody but me.”
- James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902-May 22, 1967)
American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist.
Nelson Mandela
- “Sometimes, it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
- Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013)
South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader,
and philanthropist. President of South Africa 1994-1999.
- “I never lose. I either win or learn.”
- Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013)
South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader,
and philanthropist. President of South Africa 1994-1999.
- “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
- Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013)
South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader,
and philanthropist. President of South Africa 1994-1999.
- “We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference.”
- Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013)
South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader,
and philanthropist. President of South Africa 1994-1999.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
- “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862-March 25, 1931),
African-American investigative journalist, educator, leader
in the civil rights movement, co-founder of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
- “Virtue knows no color line.”
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862-March 25, 1931),
African-American investigative journalist, educator, leader
in the civil rights movement, co-founder of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
- “I’d rather go down in history as one lone Negro who dared to tell the government that it had done a dastardly thing than to save my skin by taking back what I said.”
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862-March 25, 1931),
African-American investigative journalist, educator, leader
in the civil rights movement, co-founder of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Harriet Tubman
- “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
- Harriet Tubman (January 29, 1822-March 10, 1913),
American abolitionist, political activist. Born in
slavery, made about 13 missions rescuing around 70
enslaved people, using the “Underground Railroad.”
- “There was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would take the other, for no man should take me alive. I should fight for liberty as long as my strength lasted.”
- Harriet Tubman (January 29, 1822-March 10, 1913),
American abolitionist, political activist. Born in
slavery, made about 13 missions rescuing around 70
enslaved people, using the “Underground Railroad.”
- “Twant me, ’twas God. I always told God, ‘I trust to you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,’ and God always did.”
- Harriet Tubman (January 29, 1822-March 10, 1913),
American abolitionist, political activist. Born in
slavery, made about 13 missions rescuing around 70
enslaved people, using the “Underground Railroad.”
Audre Lorde
- “Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”
- Audre Lorde (1934-1992), American writer, feminist,
womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist.
- “When times are hard, do something. If it works, do it some more. If it does not work, do something else. But keep going.”
- Audre Lorde (1934-1992), American writer, feminist,
womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist.
- “I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.”
- Audre Lorde (1934-1992), American writer, feminist,
womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist.
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Hats Off to All Women
- “Without community, there is no liberation.”
- Audre Lorde
- “I am not free while any woman is un-free, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
- Audre Lorde
- “I used to think I was the strangest person in the world, but then I thought there are so many people in the world. There must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too, well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”
- Frida Kahlo
- “Women sometimes go too far, it’s true. But it’s only when you go too far that others listen.”
- Indira Gandhi
- “Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me. In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.”
- Alice Walker
- “When I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough women on the Supreme Court? And I say ‘When there are nine.’ People are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- “If you read a lot of Asian literature, there has always been very strong women figures - warriors, swordswomen - who defended honor and loyalty with the men. So, it's not new to our culture - it's always been very much a part of our Asian culture.”
- Michelle Yeoh
- “Don’t try to lessen yourself for the world; let the world catch up to you.”
- Beyonce
- “We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.”
- Beyonce
- “We human beings don’t realize how great God is. God has given us an extraordinary brain and a sensitive loving heart. God has blessed us with two lips to talk and express our feelings, two eyes which see a world of colors and beauty, two feet which walk on the road of life, two hands to work for us, a nose which smells the beauty of fragrance, and two ears to hear the words of love.”
- Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for the education
of women, and youngest Nobel Prize laureate.
International Worker’s Day, or May Day
- “(Farm workers) are involved in the planting and the cultivation and the harvesting of the greatest abundance of food known in this society. They bring in so much food to feed you and me and the whole country and enough food to export to other places. The ironic thing and the tragic thing is that after they make this tremendous contribution, they don’t have any money or any food left for themselves.”
- Cesar Chavez
- “To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.”
- Cesar Chavez
- “Do not romanticize the poor … We are all people, human beings subject to the same temptations and faults as all others. Our poverty damages our dignity.”
- Cesar Chavez
- “Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?”
- Cesar Chavez
In Celebration of Earth Day
- “I feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.
- Mother Teresa
- “The Earth is what we all have in common.
- Wendell Berry
- “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.
- Jane Goodall
- “To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
- Helen Keller
- “As I walk with Beauty, As I walk, as I walk, The universe is walking with me,
In beauty it walks before me, In beauty it walks behind me, In beauty it walks below me,
In beauty it walks above me, Beauty is on every side.
- Traditional Navajo Prayer
- “Let everything you do be done in love.”
- 1 Corinthians 16:14
- “Let us rejoice.”
- Psalm 118:24
- “Love knows no limits.”
- 1 Corinthians 13:7
- “O good and all-powerful God, who care for each of us as though each were the only one, and for all alike with the same tenderness you show to each?”
- Saint Augustine, Book 3.11.19
- “Becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain goal. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continually toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.”
“In my most worried moments, I take a breath and remind myself of the dignity and decency I’ve seen in people throughout my life, the many obstacles that have already been overcome.”
“I knew from experience that even during hard times, maybe especially during hard times, it was still okay to laugh.”
“Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.”
“When they go low, we go high.”
- Michelle Obama, from her best selling book,
“Becoming” (2018)
- “May the road rise to meet you, and the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm on your face, and the rains fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again, may God hold you gently in the palm of God’s hand.”
- An Irish Blessing
- “If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me, and eaten alive.”
- Audre Lorde
- “The future of our world is as bright as the future of our girls”
- Michelle Obama
- “My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.”
- Toni Morrison
- “Women are like tea bags, we don’t know our strength until we are in hot water.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- “No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow.”
- Alice Walker
- “I have the right of education. I have the right to play. I have the right to sing. I have the right to talk. I have the right to go to market. I have the right to speak up. If I did not, who would?”
- Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for the education
of women, and youngest Nobel Prize laureate.
- “I’ve been accused of being attacking, intimidating, disrespectful, all these things - and at one point I said, “ ‘I’m not being those things so I'm not going to change.’ ”
- Serena Williams
- “There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now okay to express yourself publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are.”
- Tammy Baldwin
- “Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.”
“You get to the point where your demons, which are terrifying, get smaller and smaller and you get bigger and bigger.”
“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness.”
“Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
“All you need in the world is love and laughter. That’s all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.”
- August Wilson (1945-2005), activist, American playwright, two Pulitzer Prizes
for Drama. Depicted comic and tragic aspects of
the African-American 20th cent. experience.
- “Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
- James Baldwin, (1924-1987) American novelist,
playwright, activist.
- “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
- Angela Y. Davis, law professor, author, social activist
- “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- “There will be enough women on the Supreme Court when there are nine.”
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
- “So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment, turn out to be great, good fortune.”
- “I’m dejected, but only momentarily, when I can’t get the fifth vote for something I think is very important. But then you go on to the next challenge and you give it your all. You know that these important issues are not going to go away. They are going to come back again and again. There’ll be another time, another day.”
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture
on Women and the Law,” Nov 15, 2000.
Article: The Record, winter 2001, pg 9
More quotes from RBG:
“15 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes for Her 84th Birthday”
- by Erin McCarthy, March15, 2017
- “I have decided to stick to love … Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968),
U.S. black civil rights leader and clergyman, from
his book “A Testament of Hope: The Essential
Writings and Speeches,” 1986, Harper Collins
- “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968),
U.S. black civil rights leader and clergyman, from
his book “A Testament of Hope: The Essential
Writings and Speeches,” 1986, Harper Collins
- “There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The 1st is, ‘Where am I going?’ and the 2nd is ‘Who will go with me?’ If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble.”
- Howard Washington Thurman (1899-1981). African-American author,
philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader.
- “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
- Howard Washington Thurman, from his book
“The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman:
A Visionary for Our Time”
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