We all flow from one fountain Soul by John Muir

We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all.
John Muir

A Plea For Liberty by Robert G Ingersoll

Music:
Evanthia Reboutsika -We will meet again

Robert Green Ingersoll on Liberty
(1838-1899)

I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but I do know, that coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this “bank and shoal of time” a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, for woman, and for child.

I would not wish to live in a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.

A man has a right to work with his hands, to plow the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the harvest. If we have not that right, then all are slaves except those who take these rights from their fellow-men.

If you have the right to work with your hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain? Have you not the right to read, to observe, to investigate — and when you have so read and so investigated, have you not the right to reap that field?

And what is it to reap that field? It is simply to express what you have ascertained — simply to give your thoughts to your fellow-men.

If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor, miserable serfs and slaves. For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument.

Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of anything.Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.

Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression.

That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth. I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or that I have descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber.

I am a believer in liberty.To give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right — because it is his right — but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge .

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous – if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.

They say to me, do you know more than all the theologians dead? Being a perfectly modest man I say I think I do. Now we have come to the conclusion that every man has a right to think.

Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn’t make a decent thief.

Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume.

So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged.

Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts? Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded?

Is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and renown a god must win on such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly.

You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done.

You can make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion still.

The greatest men the world has produced have known but little. They had a few facts, mingled with mistakes without number. In some departments they towered above their fellows, while in others they fell below the common level of mankind.

Volumes might be written upon the follies of great men. A full rounded man — a man of sterling sense and natural logic — is just as rare as a great painter, poet, or sculptor. If you tell your friend that he is not a painter, that he has no genius for poetry, he will probably admit the truth of what you say, without feeling that he has been insulted in the least. But if you tell him that he is not a logician, that he has but little idea of the value of a fact, that he has no real conception of what evidence is, and that he never had an original thought in his life, he will cut your acquaintance.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain.

The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.

The life and death of Christ are worth the example, the moral force, the heroism of benevolence.

Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy and blasphemy.They have not thought and suffered and died in vain.They have extend the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought.

What is real blasphemy?
Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of
a newly discovered truth.

Blasphemy is what a withered last year’s leaf
says to a this year’s bud.

Blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice.
Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless.

No man can blaspheme a book. No man can commit blasphemy
by telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme a God.
The Infinite cannot be blasphemed.

To live on the unpaid labor of other men
that is blasphemy.

To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains
upon his body — that is blasphemy.

To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles
upon the brain,padlocks upon the lips —that is blasphemy.

To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true
what you believe to be a lie — that is blasphemy.

To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you
may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious
mob — that is blasphemy.

To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of
the ignorant many — that is blasphemy.

To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest
fellow-men — that is blasphemy.
To violate your conscience — that is blasphemy.

The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge
who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
The man who bows to public opinion against his better
judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.

And now the question arises, what is worship? Who is a worshiper?
Good, honest, faithful work, is worship. The man who ploughs the fields and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce of the world; these men are worshipers. The man who goes into the forest, leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate a continent, is a worshiper.

Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. He who adds to the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer.

No statute can ever convince me, that there is any infinite Being in this universe who hates an honest man. It is impossible to satisfy me that there is any God, or can be any God, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the courage to express his thought. Neither can the whole world convince me that any man should be punished, either in this world or in the next, for being candid with his fellow-men.

If you send men to the penitentiary for speaking their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten their fellows, then the penitentiary will become a place of honor, and the victim will step from it — not stained, not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory.

Let us take one more step.

What is holy, what is sacred? I reply that human happiness is holy, human rights are holy. The body and soul of man — these are sacred.

What we want is the truth, and does any one suppose that all of the truth is confined in one book — that the mysteries of the whole world are explained by one volume? All that is — all that conveys information to man — all that has been produced by the past — all that now exists — should be considered by an intelligent man. All the known truths of this world — all the philosophy, all the poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the entrancing music — the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the words of honest men, the trumpet calls to duty — all these make up the bible of the world — everything that is noble and true and free, you will find in this great book.

Tolerance quote by John Locke

For it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come.
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration

Three Questions: A short story by Leo Tolstoy

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Caspar David Friedrich Art

Three Questions
Leo Tolstoy

It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake.

And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to any one who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do.

And learned men came to the King, but they all answered his questions differently.

In reply to the first question, some said that to know the right time for every action, one must draw up in advance, a table of days, months and years, and must live strictly according to it. Only thus, said they, could everything be done at its proper time. Others declared that it was impossible to decide beforehand the right time for every action; but that, not letting oneself be absorbed in idle pastimes, one should always attend to all that was going on, and then do what was most needful. Others, again, said that however attentive the King might be to what was going on, it was impossible for one man to decide correctly the right time for every action, but that he should have a Council of wise men, who would help him to fix the proper time for everything.

But then again others said there were some things which could not wait to be laid before a Council, but about which one had at once to decide whether to undertake them or not. But in order to decide that, one must know beforehand what was going to happen. It is only magicians who know that; and, therefore, in order to know the right time for every action, one must consult magicians.

Equally various were the answers to the second question. Some said, the people the King most needed were his councillors; others, the priests; others, the doctors; while some said the warriors were the most necessary.

To the third question, as to what was the most important occupation: some replied that the most important thing in the world was science. Others said it was skill in warfare; and others, again, that it was religious worship.

All the answers being different, the King agreed with none of them, and gave the reward to none. But still wishing to find the right answers to his questions, he decided to consult a hermit, widely renowned for his wisdom.

The hermit lived in a wood which he never quitted, and he received none but common folk. So the King put on simple clothes, and before reaching the hermit’s cell dismounted from his horse, and, leaving his body-guard behind, went on alone.

When the King approached, the hermit was digging the ground in front of his hut. Seeing the King, he greeted him and went on digging. The hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into the ground and turned a little earth, he breathed heavily.

The King went up to him and said: “I have come to you, wise hermit, to ask you to answer three questions: How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and to whom should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest? And, what affairs are the most important, and need my first attention?”

The hermit listened to the King, but answered nothing. He just spat on his hand and recommenced digging.

“You are tired,” said the King, “let me take the spade and work awhile for you.”

“Thanks!” said the hermit, and, giving the spade to the King, he sat down on the ground.

When he had dug two beds, the King stopped and repeated his questions. The hermit again gave no answer, but rose, stretched out his hand for the spade, and said:

“Now rest awhile-and let me work a bit.”

But the King did not give him the spade, and continued to dig. One hour passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees, and the King at last stuck the spade into the ground, and said:

“I came to you, wise man, for an answer to my questions. If you can give me none, tell me so, and I will return home.”

“Here comes some one running,” said the hermit, “let us see who it is.”

The King turned round, and saw a bearded man come running out of the wood. The man held his hands pressed against his stomach, and blood was flowing from under them. When he reached the King, he fell fainting on the ground moaning feebly. The King and the hermit unfastened the man’s clothing. There was a large wound in his stomach. The King washed it as best he could, and bandaged it with his handkerchief and with a towel the hermit had. But the blood would not stop flowing, and the King again and again removed the bandage soaked with warm blood, and washed and rebandaged the wound. When at last the blood ceased flowing, the man revived and asked for something to drink. The King brought fresh water and gave it to him. Meanwhile the sun had set, and it had become cool. So the King, with the hermit’s help, carried the wounded man into the hut and laid him on the bed. Lying on the bed the man closed his eyes and was quiet; but the King was so tired with his walk and with the work he had done, that he crouched down on the threshold, and also fell asleep–so soundly that he slept all through the short summer night. When he awoke in the morning, it was long before he could remember where he was, or who was the strange bearded man lying on the bed and gazing intently at him with shining eyes.

“Forgive me!” said the bearded man in a weak voice, when he saw that the King was awake and was looking at him.

“I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for,” said the King.

“You do not know me, but I know you. I am that enemy of yours who swore to revenge himself on you, because you executed his brother and seized his property. I knew you had gone alone to see the hermit, and I resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day passed and you did not return. So I came out from my ambush to find you, and I came upon your bodyguard, and they recognized me, and wounded me. I escaped from them, but should have bled to death had you not dressed my wound. I wished to kill you, and you have saved my life. Now, if I live, and if you wish it, I will serve you as your most faithful slave, and will bid my sons do the same. Forgive me!”

The King was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily, and to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him, but said he would send his servants and his own physician to attend him, and promised to restore his property. Having taken leave of the wounded man, the King went out into the porch and looked around for the hermit. Before going away he wished once more to beg an answer to the questions he had put. The hermit was outside, on his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been dug the day before.

The King approached him, and said:

“For the last time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man.”

“You have already been answered!” said the hermit, still crouching on his thin legs, and looking up at the King, who stood before him.

“How answered? What do you mean?” asked the King.

“Do you not see,” replied the hermit. “If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday, and had not dug those beds for me, but had gone your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business. Remember then: there is only one time that is important– Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!”

Insightful quotes on Bigotry, fanaticism and truth

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
George Gordon Byron

What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.
Albert Einstein

The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity.
Oscar Wilde

Fanatics in power and the funnel of a tornado have this in common the narrow path in which they move is marked by violence and destruction.
Oscar Ostlund

There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assumed ascendancy over all others.
Milton R. Sapirstein

The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr, he is a monster.
Rmile.M.Cioran

As any action or posture long continued will distort and disfigure the limbs; so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas.
Samuel Johnson

There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.
Charles Caleb Colton

Truth is like the stars; it does not appear except from behind obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the influence of falsehood. Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Khalil GIbran

Forgiveness quotes

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.
Louis B. Smedes

We are all on a life long journey and the core of its meaning, the terrible demand of its centrality is forgiving and being forgiven.
Martha Kilpatrick

Forgiveness doesn’t make the other person right, it makes you free.
Stormie Omartian

A Quote by Saint Dorotheos of Gaza on god, self, spirituality, divine, growth, learning, passions, and change

It often happens that someone sees himself sitting peacefully
and quietly, but when his brother says a word that upsets him,
he is troubled. Thus, he thinks that he is justly upset with
him, saying, ‘If he hadn’t come and spoken to me and troubled
me, I wouldn’t have sinned.’ But this is folly and absurdity.
Did the person that spoke to him give him that passion?
He simply showed him that the passion existed within him, so
that, if he wanted to, he could repent of it. He is like fine
bread bread that shines on the outside, but when one breaks it,
he see its moldeness. In just the same way, he was sitting,
as he thought, in peace, but he had this passion inside him he
was unaware of. His brother said one word and revealed
the filth hidden inside him. Therefore if he wants to receive
mercy, he must repent, purify himself, progress and he must
understand that he ought to thank his brother for being
the great cause of his spiritual benefit.
Saint Dorotheos of Gaza

Tolerance quotes by Kahlil Gibran,Eric Hoffer

I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance
from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind;
yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Kahlil Gibran

The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends
to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with
ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be
as tolerant of his neighbor’s shortcomings as he is of his own.
Eric Hoffer

Forgiveness quotes by Henry Ward Beecher ,Jessamyn West

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way
of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be
like a cancelled note–torn in two, and burned up, so
that it never can be shown against one.
Henry Ward Beecher

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes;
it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for
having witnessed your own.
Jessamyn West

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on
the heal that has crushed it.
Mark Twain

Speaking truth by Jesa MacBeth/The Art of Giving by Wilfred A. Peterson/Inspiring life quotes by Paul Bowles,J W Goethe/ Inspiring love and goodness quotes by Rumi,Carl Jung,Andras Angyal,Buddha,John O’Donohue

Music:
Feelings – FRANCIS GOYA

Quotes on life,Gratitude,Mindfulness,Serenity

Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think
of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens
a certain number of times, and a very small number, really.
How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon
of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part
of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life
without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not
even that. How many more times will you watch the full
moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.
By Paul Bowles
Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.
Who would think that those branches would turn green
again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Quotes On love and goodness

Fine Art by Roi James

The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests
as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit
hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways
with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern
for all beings.
Buddha

If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own
natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand
and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy
and a little more tolerance toward oneself can only have good
results in respect for our neighbors, for we are all too prone
to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict
upon our own natures.
Carl Gustav Jung

Love is not ‘blind’ but visionary:
It sees into the very heart of its object
And sees the ‘real self’ behind and in the midst
Of the frailties and shortcomings of the person.
Andras Angyal

Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding
is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home.
Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel
understood, you feel free to release yourself into
the trust and shelter of the other person’s soul.
John O’Donohue

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
Rumi

SPEAKING TRUTH
By Jesa MacBeth

It is possible to speak truth in anger.
When so done, people tend to hear the anger and not the truth.

It is possible to speak truth in arrogance.
When so done, people tend to hear the arrogance
and not the truth.

It is possible to speak truth in deceitful ways.
When so done, people tend to sense the deceit
and take the truth for more deceit.

It is possible to speak truth in loving kindness.
When so done, people tend to hear the love and the truth.
Or so it seems in my experience.

The Art of Giving
by Wilfred A. Peterson

We give of ourselves when we give gifts of the heart:
Love, kindness, joy, understanding, sympathy,
tolerance, forgiveness.

We give of ourselves when we give gifts of the mind:
Ideas, dreams, purposes, ideals, principles,
plans, projects, poetry.

We give of ourselves when we give gifts of the spirit:
Prayer, vision, beauty, aspiration, peace, faith.

We give of ourselves when we give the gift of words:
Encouragement, inspiration, guidance.

Emerson said it well:
“Rings and jewels are not gifts,
but apologies for gifts.
The only true gift is a portion of thyself.”