Pre-election or pre-selection post…

With only a week before elections, I hope each of you will reach deep into your heart and address what you are about and what you are willing to do about it.

Here is a small offering of quotes to ponder and it is my sincere hope that when you do go to vote, your conscience goes with you. Do you listen to all the hype or can you still think for yourself?  It is often the one pointing the finger at others that has the most to hide. There are agendas and there are hidden agendas that you will not be apprised of until the opportunity to have your say is gone. The country has not been so divided since the Civil War and as things continue in the current regime, that seems to be the direction that the country is heading toward. Of course, another possible outcome could be another war. If so, who would be your allies? As things stand now, the administration and conservative media, have alienated allies of the past and left the nation most vulnerable.  They have declared war on the environment. Pushed to the brink, the planet will survive, but will humanity? Yet the administration has trampled every protection for the environment and done all that it could to escalate global warming. I could go on, but I would rather just get to the quotes and hope you take some time, soul-searching.  What kind of world and what kind of life are you bequeathing your progeny? 

 

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”               – Edmund Burke

“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”          – Socrates 

“The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.”  – James Monroe

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” – Albert Einstein

“Indifference, to me is the epitome of all evil.” – Elie Wiesel 

“The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.”       – William Shakespeare

 “Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.” – Jerry Garcia

“Moral evil is the immorality and pain and suffering and tragedy that come because we choose to be selfish, arrogant, uncaring, hateful and abusive.” – Lee Strobel

“Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“The secret to happiness is freedom… and the secret to freedom is courage.’ – Thucydides

“Hypocrisy is the mother of all evil and racial prejudice is still her favorite child.”     – Don King

“Apathy is the overrated protection of that rock you’re hiding under.”                            – Laura J.W. Ryan

“Live simply so that others may simply live.” – Mahatma Gandhi

 

While this is merely a minuscule sampling of applicable quotes, I do hope you take time to ponder and search your values. What are you about and what kind of world do you wish to leave to your children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations?

 

Bisous and Peace,

Léa

 

Quotes of the day -Guillement du jour

Despite the passage of time, I find much relevance to the present. If any of these quotes speak to you, or make you think, it is what I hoped for. In addition to the quotes you find here, you will find a few added to the Quotes page and I hope you will stop by. I often find inspiration upon ruminating on one quote or another… Choose a quote and take it out for a walk and see where it takes you. Who will pick up the gauntlet?

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” Malala Yousafzai 

“Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts, and politicians violently denounce the politicians of other countries.” – Margaret Sanger

“A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.” – Margaret Sanger

“Woman must have her freedom, the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she will become a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man’s attitude may be, that problem is hers – and before it can be his, it is hers alone.”    – Margaret Sanger

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”  – George Orwell

“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”  – George Orwell

“Nationalism is power hunger fuelled by self deception.” – George Orwell

“Sometimes the scandal is not law was broken, but what the law allows.”                           – Edward Snowdon

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”  – Mark Twain

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”  – Mark Twain

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer up somebody else.”  – Mark Twain

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”  – William Shakespeare

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”                                 – William Shakespeare

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” – William Shakespeare

“How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”  – William Shakespeare

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”  – Mahatma Gandhi

“Man becomes great in exactly the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow men.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Power is two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than one derived from fear of punishment.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“What we think, we become.”  – Budda

“Three things cannot be long hidden: The sun, the moon and the truth.”  – Budda

 

 Bisous,

Léa

 

Love – can break your heart

 

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”   –  Kahil Gibran

“Love is composed  of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”   –  Aristotle

“Where there is love there is life.”   –   Mahatma Gandhi

 

                                         

*

Love- can break your heart

As our choir sang

Pour les maisons de la retrait

I bore witness

From the corner of

My eye

His devotion

Spills from

Pale blue eyes

Rarely leaving her side

Reading, anticipating

His efforts to

Reassure her

Albeit briefly

Respirations syncopate

As though

One heart beats

Pour tous les deux

I can feel fragile tissues

Weakening

The tenuous hold

On this life

Sa crainte

She could cross over

Without him

 Son coeur se briserait

*

Bisous,

Léa

Talk: it doesn’t come

“The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.” 

–       Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

“It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”   –  John Steinbeck

 

“A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.   –  Mahatma Gandhi

***

Talk: it doesn’t come

It doesn’t come

Any cheaper

Than that

A few words

Without the

Actions to

Reinforce

My lack of

You

Why you call

Once or twice a

Year

In five years

Not a single

Visit

Yet when there is

Brief chat (always too busy)

Or email

You tell me

You love me

And how

I am

Missed

But the

Actions

Or shall we

Simply say the

Lack

Of action

Reverberate

Across the

Sea

***

Bisous,

Léa

The Man Who Sleeps On Cathedral Stairs

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
– Mother Teresa

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Poverty is the mother of crime.”
– Marcus Aurelius

The Man Who Sleeps On Cathedral Stairs

Stained glass

Windows

Warmed with

Sunlight

Melting

Rainbows

Spraying pews

Hymnals

Cross

Statue

Sun rising

*

Beyond

Heavy oak door

Concrete altar

Blanketed

By snow

Another

Son

Melts into the rainbow

Son

Rising

Bisous,

Léa