* "...as long as we have nuclear weapons on this earth, one could claim that no real life is actually thriving on the earth. We do not have life actualizing its fullest potential as long as there are nuclear weapons."
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

Every word we speak and every action we make has the potential to change the direction of a relationship. Every moment is an opportunity to build bonds for a better world. The key is to be able to step back and monitor the things we say and do.
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

Viewed with one disposition, history has so far been a horrible accumulation of oppression and suffering. Viewed with another disposition, however, history has chronicled humans discovering their own finer potentials and together mounting heroic offensives to attain them - against monarchy, feudalism, slavery, Jim Crow racism, apartheid, sexual subjugation, second class citizenship, sexism, heterosexism, dictatorship, one party rule, capitalism, and coordinatorism (calling itself socialism) - and seeking, in their place, equity, justice, and freedom. The gains humans have made have been steady and plentiful. Now a major leap is possible. Consistent with past efforts, we can now attain fully liberatory goals, including, I think, participatory economics and also alternative structures for polity, culture, and kinship. We have only to make the effort.
-- Michael Albert

For the economy I want workers and consumers to have control over their own economic lives. I want everyone to have fair conditions that fully utilize their talents and potentials. I want incomes that accord with the efforts people expend in their labors. I want what is produced, by whom, under what conditions, and with who consuming the result--all determined in accord with enhancing human well-being and development and all decided by the people involved and affected. I want an end to hierarchies of power and wealth and to class division with most actors subordinated to an elite few. To accomplish all these ends I favor the institutions of participatory economics -- worker and consumer councils, remuneration for effort and sacrifice, balanced job complexes, and participatory planning. If someone should demonstrate that those institutions somehow fail to accomplish necessary economic functions or have social or personal by-products that outweigh their benefits -- I would simply return to the drawing board. Exploitation, alienation, poverty, disempowerment, fragmenting and debilitating labor, production for the profit of a few -- much less harsh homelessness, starvation, and degradation -- are not like gravity. They arise from institutional relations established by human beings. New institutions, also established by human beings, can generate other vastly superior outcomes. Defining and working to attain those new institutions ought to be our economic agenda.
-- Michael Albert

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
-- Maya Angelou

* "I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons."
-- Hans Bethe

"We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends."
-- Mary McLeod Bethune

* In these disturbing and distressing times, surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them..Justice is the surest way to get peace.
-- Bono

* "The role of the market place is to be an instrument of environmental change and policy making. We are all consumers with a great potential for change. Environmental protection begins at home."
~ Noel Brown, Former Director of the UN Environmental Program

if globalization is to realise its potential as a force for good, we have to look more closely at the means by which we handle our growing interdependence. We do not have a world government, but we do have an increasingly complex network of institutions that are concerned with global governance. They are central to our future and international human rights law,
-- Gro Brundtland

We all have the potential to move the world, and the world is ready to be moved.
-- Harry Chapin

* Non-violence can truly flourish when the world is free of poverty, hunger, discrimination, exclusion, intolerance and hatred - when women and men can realize their highest potential and live a secure and fulfilling life. Until then, each and every one of us would have to contribute - collectively and individually - to build peace through non-violence.
-- Anwarul Chowdhury

"With realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world."
-- Dalai Lama

* labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.
-- Eugene V. Debs

"Despite the important progress underway, much work remains to be done in terms of recognizing and harnessing the full potential of volunteerism for development. It is indeed events like International Volunteer Day that help to highlight the impact volunteers are having in every region."
-- Ad de Raad, Executive Coordinator, United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme

None of us can continue to grow, develop and perform at our highest potential without hope. Hope for success, hope for recognition and reward and most importantly, hope that indeed we can make a difference in the long-term outcome. Hope supplies the essential fuel that enables the human spirit to continue moving forward, especially in the face of severe adversity.
-- John Di Frances

“It is often by a trivial, even an anecdotal decision, that we direct our activities into a certain channel, and thus determine which of the potential expressions of our individuality become manifest. Usually we know nothing of the ultimate orientation or of the outlet toward which we travel, and the stream sweeps us to a formula of life from which there is no returning. Every decision is like a murder, and our march forward is over the stillborn bodies of all our possible selves that will never be.”
~ René Dubos

* I love the idea that biodiesel has the potential to support farmers, especially the family farms.
-- Daryl Hannah

There has always been a longing in the human heart for a more just, free, loving and creative society. But it was never before possible to fulfill these aspirations, because we had neither the evolutionary drivers and global crises to force us to change, nor did we have the scientific and technological powers that can free us from the limitations of scarcity, poverty, disease, and ignorance. This is the time of awakening for the social potential movement. -- Barbara Marx Hubbard

The social potential movement is on the threshold of a mass awakening, seeking to carry into society what individuals have learned spiritually and personally. -- Barbara Marx Hubbard

* A truly free society must not include a "peace" which oppresses us. We must learn on our own terms what peace and freedom mean together. There can be no peace if there is social injustice and suppression of human rights, because external and internal peace are inseparable. Peace is not just the absence of mass destruction, but a positive internal and external condition in which people are free so that they can grow to their full potential.
-- Petra Kelly

* "I felt my country should do more for its children. Its children are not born gangsters. In fact, they have in them the potential to be heroes because most of the kids who are in these gangs are leaders, very charismatic and good organizers."
-- Azim Khamisa

"People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially catastrophic changes."
-- Elizabeth Kolbert

There is a hidden epidemic threatening the lives of millions of Americans...hunger. In this land of plenty, it is unthinkable that fellow citizens are going hungry. Included among these millions are children who, due to malnourishment, are not developing to their full potential intellectually, emotionally or behaviorally. The fortunate must provide for the unfortunate...
-- Swoosie Kurtz

* "If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place."
-- Margaret Mead

In my mind, the purpose of education is to enable human beings to develop to their full potential, intellectually and spiritually. That means that students have to be empowered to pursue self-knowledge and the skills that will help them be of service to their fellow human beings. Education should encourage people to develop their curiosity about life; above all, it should not trivialize either the students or their lives.
-- Michael Nagler

Like most parents in the US, they are trying, with a little help from UNICEF, to do the best they can to help their children reach their full potential...
-- Susan Sarandon

* Certainly the vision of the spiritual nature of man and the universe brings the conviction that the human potential is unlimited and that we stand at the threshold over which a quantum leap in consciousness is possible.
~ George Trevelyan

* “We women have the same capacity and potential for power to allow us to be participants in our own destiny.”
~ Rafaela vos Obeso

* There can be no lasting peace, no security, nor can we as human beings begin to touch our full potential, as long as hunger overwhelms the human spirit around this planet.
-- Dennis Weaver

“When I see brokenness, poverty and crime in inner cities, I also see the enormous potential and readiness for transformation and rebirth. We are creating an art form that comes from the heart and reflects the pain and sorrow of people's lives. It also expresses joy, beauty, and love. This process lays the foundation of building a genuine community in which people are reconnected with their families, sustained by meaningful work, nurtured by the care of each other and will together raise and educate their children. Then we witness social change in action.”
-- Lily Yeh