Desiderius Erasmus was a Christian teacher who lived between the times of the Middle Ages and the birth of the Renaissance. These words are attributed to him. I share these words as they were shared with me upon my graduation from High school
’Tis a brave world, my young doctor!
Do not be afraid of it; do not calculate your chances so closely
That you miss your chance;
Do not pretend to know what you do not know.
Work and laugh and give thanks for these three are one.
You did not make the world. You cannot remake it.
You cannot even spoil it.
You may, however, know the wonder of improving some small corner of it,
But (do not forget that) before you arrived
The world was pronounced “very good.”
Go now and enter into its joy.
’Tis a brave world, my young doctor!
Do not be afraid of it; do not calculate your chances so closely
That you miss your chance;
Do not pretend to know what you do not know.
Work and laugh and give thanks for these three are one.
You did not make the world. You cannot remake it.
You cannot even spoil it.
You may, however, know the wonder of improving some small corner of it,
But (do not forget that) before you arrived
The world was pronounced “very good.”
Go now and enter into its joy.
MLK quotes to store in my mind...
In light of MLK day, I would like to submit some of the great lines from some of MLK's works which have made an impression on me:
The American Dream June 6, 1961
"America has been something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against herself. On the one head we have proudly professed the principles of democracy, and on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very antithesis of those principles."
"Civilization refers to what we use; culture refers to what we are... The great problem confronting us today is we have allowed our civilization to outrun our culture."
"The practical aspect of nonviolent resistance is that it exposes the moral defenses of the opponent. Not only that, it somehow arouses his conscience at the same time, and it breaks down his morale."
"The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or nonexistence."
Letter from Birmingham City Jail April 16th, 1963
"I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth."
"Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering that outright rejection."
"Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love?"
"...after all, the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
"If the church today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century."
The American Dream June 6, 1961
"America has been something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against herself. On the one head we have proudly professed the principles of democracy, and on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very antithesis of those principles."
"Civilization refers to what we use; culture refers to what we are... The great problem confronting us today is we have allowed our civilization to outrun our culture."
"The practical aspect of nonviolent resistance is that it exposes the moral defenses of the opponent. Not only that, it somehow arouses his conscience at the same time, and it breaks down his morale."
"The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or nonexistence."
Letter from Birmingham City Jail April 16th, 1963
"I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth."
"Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering that outright rejection."
"Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love?"
"...after all, the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
"If the church today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century."
Where my mind is today...
"Christian nonviolence is not a strategy to rid the world of violence, but rather the way Christians must live in a world of violence. In short Christians are not nonviolent because we believe our nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but rather because faithful followers of Christ in a world of war cannot imagine being anything else than nonviolent."
-Stanley Hauerwas interpreting Yoder's pacifism
"Jesus did not bring a new idea : rather in him an old idea ceased being an idea at all and became a living reality."
-John Knox
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
-Susan B. Anthony
"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is ."
"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
"There is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed."
-Gandhi
"If we have more than we need while someone else has less, then we are thieves."
– Shane Claiborne
If the attitude we have toward water as a power source is the same as we have toward oil as a power source, then we will be in the same energy crisis in the future.
- paraphrased comments of Joan Chittister
"What you believe follows only after what you do."
- Scott-Martin Kosofsky, a book designer and editor, decided to revise the "Book of Customs,"
-Stanley Hauerwas interpreting Yoder's pacifism
"Jesus did not bring a new idea : rather in him an old idea ceased being an idea at all and became a living reality."
-John Knox
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
-Susan B. Anthony
"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is ."
"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
"There is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed."
-Gandhi
"If we have more than we need while someone else has less, then we are thieves."
– Shane Claiborne
If the attitude we have toward water as a power source is the same as we have toward oil as a power source, then we will be in the same energy crisis in the future.
- paraphrased comments of Joan Chittister
"What you believe follows only after what you do."
- Scott-Martin Kosofsky, a book designer and editor, decided to revise the "Book of Customs,"
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.