Be
a Hero for a Better World ... Every Act of Kindness Makes
a Difference!
WEALTH
In
every Indigenous community I’ve been in, they absolutely
do want community infrastructure and they do want
development, but they want it on their own terms.
They want to be able to use their national resources
and their assets in a way that protects and sustains
them. Our territories are our wealth, the major assets
we have. And Indigenous people use and steward this
property so that they can achieve and maintain a livelihood,
and achieve and maintain that same livelihood for
future generations.’
-- Rebecca
Adamson
Exactly
what brings happiness is a mystery for most people.
Some try to find the answer by pursuing wealth, love,
adventure and climbing the corporate ladder. Many
who reach the goals that they've convinced themselves
they need to reach to be happy, however, find themselves
still searching for happiness. The conclusion that
many heroes for a better world have discovered, is
that helping others to be happy is the surest way
to find happiness. -- Robert
Alan Silverstein
If
only we could have a wealth of literature and music
and art that would inspire and encourage us and show
us how wonderful peace on earth could be, perhaps
we would be more excited about working together to
create a better world. If you are a writer, artist,
musician or filmmaker, and you dream of peace on earth,
please use your creativity to help create a better
world.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
"We
must not only control the weapons that can kill us,
we must bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity
among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of
whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity or choices
in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for
division that can cause a desperate people to resort
to nuclear weapons as a last resort. Our only hope lies
in the power of our love, generosity, tolerance and
understanding and our commitment to making the world
a better place..."
-- Muhammad
Ali
*
"As
labor creates the wealth of the country, we demand
the passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect
it in all its rights."
-- John
Peter Altgeld
"...let
us recognize that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat
to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty
is a denial of human rights. For the first time in history,
in this age of unprecedented wealth and technical prowess,
we have the power to save humanity from this shameful
scourge. Let us summon the will to do it."
-- Kofi
Annan
"No
man can tell if he is rich or poor by turning to his
ledger.
It is the heart that makes a man rich.
He is rich according to what he is, not according
to what he has."
-- Henry
Ward Beecher
The
American fast food diet and the meat eating habits
of the wealthy around the world support a world food
system that diverts food resources from the hungry.
A diet higher in whole grains and legumes and lower
in beef and other meat is not just healthier for ourselves
but also contributes to changing the world system
that feeds some people and leaves others hungry.
-- Dr.Walden
Bello
"The
nature of the economic system should be a matter for public
choice, and free market capitalism should not be accepted
without any discussion of the rich variety of alternatives
... Unlike civil laws, economic laws are imposed on people
with all the authority of immutable laws of nature. But
the economy is created by people, supported by government
intervention, regulation, statute and subsidy, and implemented
in such a way that it gives substantial wealth and power
to a privileged few, while the majority face a life of relentless
work, stress and periodic financial insecurity."
-- Tony Benn
When
we all relate to each other as we would like to receive
if our roles are reversed, we move closer to utopia. Every
one of us can bring this closer, starting now. This includes
how we relate to our own family, our neighbors and how we
use our wealth and opportunities to help entire nations
that lack our advantages. -- Bill Blackman
I
learned that the interior of life was as rewarding as the
exterior of life,
and that my richest moments occurred when I was absolutely
still.
-- Richard Bode
*
Today social justice represents one of the most serious
challenges to the conscience of the world. The abyss
between those who are within the world 'order' and
those who are excluded is widening day by day. The
use of leading-edge technologies has made it possible
to accumulate wealth in a way that is fantastic but
perverse because it is unjustly distributed. Twenty-percent
of humankind control eighty percent of all means of
life. That fact creates a dangerous imbalance in the
movement of history.
-- Leonardo
Boff
My
riches consist not in the extent of my possessions but in
the fewness of my wants.
-- J. Botherton
"If
we lived in a desert and our lives depended on a water supply
that came out of a steel tube, we would inevitably watch
that tube and talk about it understandingly. No citizen
would need to be lectured about his duty toward its care
and spurred to help if it were in danger. Teachers of civics
in such a community might develop a sense of public responsibility,
not only by describing the remote beginnings of the commonwealth,
but also how that tube got built, how long it would last,
how vital the intake might be if the rainfall on the forested
mountains nearby ever changed in seasonal habit ot amount.
It would be a most unimaginative person, or a stupid one,
who could not see the vital relation between the mountains,
the forests, that tube and himself."
-- Isaiah Bowman
"We
can have a democracy in this country
or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of
a few, but we cannot have both."
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
"One
of the most distressing consequences of globalization is
the increase in the wealth of a few while hundreds of millions
of people still live in poverty. However, microfinance is
a powerful tool to begin to change that."
-- Marilou van Golstein Brouwers
Surplus
wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound
to administer in his lifetime for the good of the
community.
~ Andrew
Carnegie
To live
content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes
and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly,
act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common--this is my symphony.
-- William Henry Channing
*"Democracy
is just a word. You have to give it meaning. The US
is not a democracy. Most Americans do not vote. We haven't
had a real choice for a long, long time now. Wealth
rules. Corporations rule. The US is a plutocracy --
government by wealthy people. Certain people control
multinational corporations. You couldn't get elected
in the US without lots of money."
-- Ramsey
Clark
All
riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas - not
money.
-- Robert Collier
In a
country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed
of.
In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed
of.
-- Confucius
"In
the same way that we today think that the slave trade
and colonial exploitation were inhuman and inconceivably
bestial ways of acquiring riches, there is no doubt
that coming generations will think that our form of
world trade and distribution of the world's benefits
were just as inconceivable and inhuman."
-- Erik
Dammann
Gratitude
is riches. Complaint is poverty.
-- Doris
Day
It is
inconceivable that, in the richest nation in the world,
we have 30 million people at risk of hunger.
I believe that, if we truly make a commitment as a nation,
we can defeat hunger.
-- Bo Derek
The
greatest good you can do for another is not just share your
riches, but reveal to them their own.
-- Benjamin Disraeli
*
The
native American has been generally despised by his
white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They
forget, perhaps, that his religion forbade the accumulation
of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury... Furthermore,
it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of
his skill and success with his less fortunate brothers.
Thus he kept his spirit free from the clog of pride,
cupidity, or envy, and carried out, as he believed,
the divine decree—a matter profoundly important to
him.
-- Charles
Eastman (Ohiyesa)
Never
work just for money. Money alone won't save your soul
or build a decent family life or help you sleep at
night. We're the richest nation on Earth, with the
highest number of imprisoned people in the world.
Our drug addictions and child poverty are among the
highest in the industrialized world. So don't ever
confuse wealth or fame with character.
-- Marian
Wright Edelman
*
"America's
leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our
unmatched material progress, riches and military strength,
but on how we use our power in the interests of world
peace and human betterment."
-- Dwight
D. Eisenhower
Be careful
to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich,
for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth
of the ignorant.
-- Epictetus
Early
to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy
and wise.
-- Benjamin
Franklin
*
"It
is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold
and silver.”
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
*
There's
enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not
for everyone's greed.
~ Mohandas
Gandhi
So long
as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings
goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury
and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have
and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be
permanent.
-- Henry George
*
No
one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness
and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort
of every true education should be to unlock that treasure."
*
"The
answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels...
If
we succeed, we create booming new industries, wealth,
clean secure energy and maybe we prevent the greatest
disaster so far in human history, saving millions
of lives while improving billions more. If we fail,
basically it's business as usual while things slowly
get worse all around us."
~ Al
Gore
"I'm
not against the corporations. They are our wealth.
But they are getting too greedy. I don't want to do
away with corporations. I want them to make our cars,
however, not our laws." -- Doris
Haddock (Granny D)
Do
you realize that $150 billion of our tax money is
given to the corporations, unions and wealthy people
for tax breaks, special subsidies and special regulations?
That money would be available for health and education
and building bridges. -- Doris
Haddock (Granny D)
Recognizing
that the current form of globalization is nothing more than
a generalized downward leveling in which global corporations
are extracting more and more of the wealth, power, and productive
energies from communities and the environment is the right
approach... And knowing that in every specific battle, what
we are fighting for is merely the substitution of the human
agenda for the corporate agenda is what can guide and sustain
us.
-- Robin Hahnel
If
you have health, you probably will be happy,
and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth
you need,
even if it is not all you want.
~ Elbert Hubbard
It's
appalling that there should be hunger anywhere,
but particularly in a country like America, where there
is also such great wealth.
-- Elizabeth Hurley
The
wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its
poverty by how little.
-- W. R. Inge
It
is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquillity
and occupation which give happiness.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
“We
have words for racism and sexism, but wealth discrimination
isn’t fully recognized. It is a bias in favor of
the wealthy and against labor, the environment,
and the community. Concern for the public good must
become the animating force of our economic order.”
-- Marjorie
Kelly
"It
is our task in our time and in our generation, to
hand down undiminished to those who come after us,
as was handed down to us by those who went before,
the natural wealth and beauty which is ours."
~
John
F. Kennedy
I
look forward to a great future for America - a future
in which our country will match its military strength
with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom,
its power with our purpose. --
John
F. Kennedy
"What
we are fighting for is not just the fishes and the
birds. We protect nature not for nature's sake but
for our own sake because it's the infrastructure of
our communities, and if we want to meet the obligations
of our civilization and our culture which are to create
communities for our children that provide them with
the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment
as the communities that our parents gave us, we've
got to start by protecting that infrastructure; the
air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the
landscapes that enrich us. We're not protecting nature
for nature's sake. We're protecting it because it
enriches us, yes, it enriches our economy and we ignore
that at our peril. But it is also enriching us aesthetically,
recreationally, culturally, historically and spiritually.
Human beings have other appetites besides money. And
if we don't feed them, we're not going to grow up…we're
not going to become the kind of beings that our creator
intended us to become."
~ Robert
Kennedy, Jr.
A
true revolution of values will soon cause us to question
the fairness and justice of many of our present policies...
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a
beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look
on uneasily upon the glaring contrast of poverty and
wealth with righteous indignation. --
Martin
Luther King, Jr
“I believe
in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions
that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in
democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes
me a liberal, and I’m proud of it."
-- Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize-winning economist)
I
see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves
me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country....corporations
have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high
places will follow, and the money of the country will
endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the
prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated
in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel
at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country
than ever before, even in the midst of war.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
*
"All
wealth is the product of labor."
-- John
Locke
*
Massive
poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges
of our times -- times in which the world boasts breathtaking
advances in science, technology, industry and wealth
accumulation -- that they have to rank alongside slavery
and apartheid as social evils.
-- Nelson
Mandela
"To
accept what you are is to be content, and contentment is
the greatest wealth.
To work with patience is to gather power."
-- Vimalia McClure
We live
in the richest country in the world. There's plenty to spare
and for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition
to this our country was founded on what should have been
a great , true principle -- the freedom, equality, and rights
of each individual. Huh! And what has come of this start?
There are corporations worth billions of dollars--and hundreds
of thousands of people who don't get to eat.
-- Carson McCullers
Biodiversity
is our nation's natural wealth.
The Endangered Species Act safeguards these riches.
- Judy L. Meyer
"A
person's true wealth is the good he or she does in the world."
-- Mohammed
Riches
are not from abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented
mind.
- Mohammed
*
We
are the richest country in the world. We spend more
on health care than any other country. Yet we have the
worst health care in the Western world. Come on. We
can do better than this.
-- Michael
Moore
When
all the people in the world love one another, then the strong
will not overpower the weak, the many will not oppress the
few, the wealthy will not mock the poor, the honored will
not disdain the humble, and the cunning will not deceive
the simple.
-- Motsi (463-401 BC)
*
“Charity is commendable; everyone should be charitable.
But justice aims to create a social order in which,
if individuals choose not to be charitable, people still
don’t go hungry, unschooled or sick without care. Charity
depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth;
justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance.”
-- Bill
Moyers
It is
an embarrassment that the United States, the wealthiest
nation, has people that go hungry.
-- Craig T. Nelson
I
think those of us who have extraordinary wealth have
an opportunity to leverage that wealth to stimulate
a just and sustainable economy. I know it goes against
the grain but I know it's possible. It's just about
deciding what kind of choices we want to make.
-- Carol
Newell
This
is the moment when we must build on the wealth that
open markets have created, and share its benefits
more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our
growth and global development. But we will not be
able to sustain this growth if it favors the few,
and not the many.
-- Barack
Obama
"Leave the old and dying America and use your creative
energies to help form a new America, which would be
demilitarized, more humanistic, where the police are
less hostile and closer to the community, where the
wealthy are not given unleashed power for the exploitation
of the people, and mostly because it's now a matter
of life and death, reassert an ecological balance
with the environment, which means the people in the
oil companies and the car companies and the space
industry will have to be brought into account, so
there will be a new definition of government which
has to be closer to the people and less close to special
interests which are far more harmful that any revolutionaries.
-- Phil
Ochs
*
The
labor movement means just this: It is the last noble
protest of the American people against the power of
incorporated wealth.
-- Wendell
Phillips
"What
may be possible for a minority of humankind, albeit at great
cost, simply cannot work for the humankind. Our kind of
progress depends on lacerating the Earth, on gouging out
its riches, on stripping is life-sustaining skin of soil
and forest, on poisoning its pure air, on defecating copiously
in its pure water... the single most important indicator
of environmental decline is the extent to which the damage
done is reversible. The most heinous ecological crime of
all is for any one generation so seriously to assault the
web of life that the damage done is literally irreversible
for every generation that follows."
~ Jonathon Porritt
He who
oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives
gifts to the rich--both come to poverty.
-- Proverbs 22:16
The
only way in which a nation can make itself wealthy
and prosperous is by good housekeeping: that is, by
providing for its wants in the order of their importance,
and allowing no money to be wasted on whims and luxuries
until necessities have been thoroughly served.
-- George
Bernard Shaw
*Childhood
hunger in America is as much a paradox as it is a tragedy.
Why, in the wealthiest country in the world, should
hunger darken the lives and dreams of 12 million children
and their families? I believe that, when Americans learn
the facts and understand how their involvement can make
a difference, banishing childhood hunger will be a national,
local and personal priority.
-- Martin
Sheen
American
families have always shown remarkable resiliency, or flexible
adjustment to natural, economic, and social challenges.
Their strengths resemble the elasticity of a spider web,
a gull's skillful flow with the wind, the regenerating power
of perennial grasses, the cooperation of an ant colony,
and the persistence of a stream carving canyon rocks. These
are not the strengths of fixed monuments but living organisms.
This resilience is not measured by wealth, muscle or efficiency
but by creativity, unity, and hope. Cultivating these family
strengths is critical to a thriving human community.
-- Ben Silliman
"Labour
was the first price, the original purchase - money that
was paid for all things.
It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all
wealth of the world was originally purchased."
-- Adam Smith
"Contentment
is natural wealth."
-- Socrates (c 470- 399 BC)
*
People
are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer
health insurance.' We are the only industrialized
country in the world that does not have national health
insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest
in health of all the industrial nations.
-- Studs
Terkel
That
man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
-- Henry
David Thoreau
"Poverty
is not something people impose on themselves for want of
effort and community organisation. It is constructed by
divisive and discriminatory laws, inflexible organisations,
acquisitive ideologies of wealth, a deeply rooted class
system and policies which serve privilege in the short term
and destroy society in the long term."
-- Peter Townshend
Let's
share our abundance and make our country stronger. We can
encourage programs that collect and distribute excess prepared
food to local organizations that are helping the hungry
in our own communities. We can also support programs that
supply commodities to food banks. It's all part of committing
our country's wealth and resources to end childhood hunger.
-- John Travolta
The
greatest wealth is health.
~ Virgil
"Cruelty
to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low
and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute
a sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted
over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury."
-- Alexander Von Humbolt
"This
is what you should do;
love the Earth and sun and the animals, despite riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labour to others,
hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence towards the people,
take off your hat to nothing known or unknown
or to any many or number of men...
re-examine all you have been told at school
or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem."
~ Walt
Whitman
*
It
is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves
a country is prosperous, but great general wealth
evenly distributed among the people. . .
-- Victoria
Woodhull
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