Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Charles Caleb Colton

Death is the liberator oh him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, the comforter of him whom time cannot console.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He is only rich who owns the day. There is no king, rich man, fairy or demon who possesses such power as that. The days are made on a loom whereof the warp and woof are past and future time.

Henri Frederic Amiel

To conceive order, to return to order, to realize order in oneself, around oneself, of oneself, this is aesthetic and moral beauty.

Walter Lippmann

For the Newspaper is in all literalness the Bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

Bertrand Russell

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.

Buddha

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

Eileen Caddy

Expect your every need to be met. Expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level.

Jon Holt

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.

The Buddha

A man isn’t a great man b/c he is a warrior & kills other men; but because he hurts not any living being he in truth is called a great man.

The Buddha

Don’t speak harshly to any one;those who r spoken to ‘ll answer thee in the same way.Angry speech is painful:blows for blows ‘ll touch thee.

The Buddha

In this world Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, Ancient and inexhaustible.

Ernest Hemingway

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

Nelson Henderson

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

The Buddha

This is the great vehicle of a Bodhisattva that, in all their modes, he develops the dharmas which are the 37 wings to enlightenment.

Louis D. Brandeis

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.

The Buddha

A Bodhisattva sees no difference in the beauty of beings. All beings shall be attractive, good-looking — the supreme excellence of beauty.

The Buddha

On a long journey of human life, faith is the best of companions; it is the best refreshment on the journey; and it is the greatest property.

The Buddha

A Bodhisattva, in consequence of seeing all dharmas as without basis, will go forth in the great vehicle to the knowledge of all modes.

The Buddha

Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds and shine!

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.

Shakespeare

No sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason.

Senator Barry Goldwater

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue

Washington Irving

It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.

Edwin Markham

There is a destiny that makes us brothers

None goes his way alone

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back onto our own

Charles W Eliot

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

Joseph Addison

Courage that grows from constitution, often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty, acts in a uniform manner.

Abraham Lincoln

Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he Is right and part with him when he goes wrong.

Thomas Paine

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

John Stuart Mill

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome and England.

Francis Bacon

There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.

Feodor Dostoevski

It seems, in fact, as though but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions – the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.

François Hollande

The time is past when humankind thought it could selfishly draw on exhaustible resources. We know now the world is not a commodity, is not a source of revenue; it’s a common good, it’s our heritage. And the consequences of climate change are fully known now – we’re not talking about theories anymore, we’re talking about certainties.

Ban Ki-moon

Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself.

Greta Thunberg

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

Bill Gates

By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited… The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.

Malcolm Turnbull

Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires.

Henry David Thoreau

If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead and alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior.

Gardens

Your sacred plants, if here below,

Only among the plants will grow

Society is all but rude,

To this delicious solitude.

Future

The nation is burdened with the heavy curse on those who come afterwards. The generation before us was inspired by an activism and a naive enthusiasm, which we cannot rekindle, because we confront tasks of a different kind from those which our fathers faced.

Friendship

Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. It were almost to be wished that all true and faithful friends should expire on the same day.

Archibald MacLeish

To see the earth as we now see it, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night brothers who see now they are truly brothers.

Thomas Carlyle

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity speech is shallow as Time.

Benjamin Franklin

If you would relish food, labor for it before you take it; if you enjoy clothing, pay for it before you wear it; if you would sleep soundly, take a clear conscience to bed with you.

Justice Felix Frankfurter

If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.

Phaedrus

Give time to your friends, leisure to your wife, relax your mind, give rest to your body, so that you may the better fulfil your accustomed occupation.

Khalil Gibran

That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness, will appear tomorrow as an essential link in the complete chain of man.

Clarence Day

Father expected a great deal of God. He did not actually accuse God of inefficiency, but when he prayed his tone was loud and angry, like that of a dissatisfied guest in a carelessly managed hotel.

Eleanor Roosevelt

The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give…….. In any case, the giving of love is an education in itself.

Francis Bowes Sayre

Humanity cannot go forward, civilizations cannot advance. Except as the philosophy of force is replaced by that of human brotherhood.

Peter Marshall

Give to us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.

Abraham Lincoln

I do the very best I know how the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to any thing. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Christopher Wren

Architecture has its political use; public buildings being the ornaments of a country; it establishes a Nation, draws People and commerce; makes the People love their native country, which Passion is the original of all great Actions in a Common wealth. Architecture aims at Eternity.

Cicero

History is the witness of the times, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.

Edward Everett Hale

I am only one

But still I am one.

I cannot do everything,

But still I can do something;

And because I cannot do everything

I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

Mark Twain

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

Cherry Blossom

Cherry Blossom

Edmund Burke

Society is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living those who are dead and those who are to be born.

Cutting And The Cutter

The Cutter

A razor

slices through

the thin sheet

and red syrup

begins to flow

down the swivel.

Cut

Cut into your wrist

watch the skin peel back

and the flesh separate

as blood begins to ooze

from the severed vein.

Watch the tension

you release today

become regret

and misery

tomorrow.

Cutter

A young girl

alone

in her room

enjoying the tingling sensation

at her wrist.

Nobody knows.

Cutting

Red droplets ooze

and drip.

Silent Night (1-2)

Silent Night #1

A man

dressed in black

sits with his head in his hands,

listens to Silent Night playing

on a distant music box

and cries.

Silent Night #2

A coarse and raspy voice

sings Silent Night

one last time.

Spring

Spring

The Recluse

Everyone has problems

and we see those problems

yet we still tend to trivialize the problems of others

while stressing and worrying over our own

making them all important.

We are filled with conceit

wanting to believe we are important.

The recluse locks himself away,

desiring seclusion; departure from the cares of the world.

Not wishing to socialize with others,

each seeking companionship,

while repeating the same old

political, religious, and trivial discussions

that have been recited countless times before,

each person believing to have insight

that others do not.

The recluse sees this and wants no part in it,

but prefers solitude unpolluted

by trivialities and false wisdom.

Sounds can be pleasant yet

silence is preferable to unpleasant noise.

Plato

There are three arts which are concerned with all things, one which uses, another which makes and a third which imitates them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist had actually expressed.

Dente Alighieri

Art, as far as it has the ability, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master, so that art must be, as it were, a descendant of God.

Carl Sandburg

The Fog comes

On little cat feet.

It sits looking

Over the harbor and city

On silent haunches

And then, moves on.

Walt Whitman

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools,

Wisdom cannot be passed from one having it to another not having it,

Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is it’s own proof.

Richard M Nixon

Nothing matters more to the future of this Nation than insuring that our young men and women learn to believe in themselves and believe in their dreams, and that they develop this capacity that you develop this capacity, so that you keep it all of your lives.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in Color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

Thomas Carlyle

The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot tell what he is going to do, who has got no work cut out for him in the world, and does not go into it.

Henry David Thoreau

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.

Dean Rusk

Physicists and astronomers see their own implications in the world being round, but to me it means that only one-third of the world is asleep at any given time and the other two thirds is up to something.

H L Mencken

The impulse to create beauty is rather rare in literary men. Far ahead of it comes the yearning to make money. And after the yearning to make money comes the yearning to make a noise.

Winston Churchill

Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind.

Samuel Johnson

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

St Basil of Caesarea

And for those also, Dear Lord, the humble beasts, who with us bear the burden and heat of the day, and offer their guileless lives for the well being of their country, we supplicate thy great tenderness of heart for thou hast promised to save both man and beast. And great is thy loving kindness, oh master, savior of the world.

Carl N Degler

The metaphor of the melting pot is unfortunate and misleading. A more accurate analogy would be a salad bowl, for, though the salad is an entity, the lettuce can still be distinguished from the chicory, the tomatoes from the cabbage.

Cicero

For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well bred man than agriculture.

Robert Louis Stevenson

To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of Years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an untouchable brat, well birched and none the wiser.

Theodore Roosevelt

We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage. For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.

John F Kennedy

With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessings and his help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Elbert Green Hubbard

There is something that is much more scare, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

Georges Clemenceau

When a man ask himself what is meant by action he proves that he is not a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be some what in sane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail and not drift nor lie at anchor.

Georges Clemenceau

A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he is not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.

Benedict Spinoza

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long is he determined not to do it; and consequently so long is it impossible to him that he should do it.

James Madison

Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

Ken Venturi

I don’t believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.

Dalai Lama

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

Dan Millman

I learned that we can do anything, but we can’t do everything… at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.

Jim Rohn

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

Greer Garson

Starting out just to make money is the greatest mistake in life.

Do what you feel you have a flair for doing, and if you are good enough at it, the money will come.

Nagarjuna

When young, rejoice in the tranquility of the old.

However, boast not of what you know even when learned.

However high may you rise, be not proud.

Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; It is a state of mind;

It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees;

It is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions;

It is the freshness of the deep springs of life………

Thomas Moore

How calm, how beautiful comes on The still hour, when storms have gone,

When warring winds have died away

And clouds, beneath the glancing ray

Melt off and leave the land and sea

Sleeping in bright tranquility.

Thucydides

Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbours, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few.

Thomas Merton

It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God’s will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God’s will yourself.

Walter D Wintle

If You think you are beaten.you are

If You think you dare not, you don not

If you would like to win, but think you cannot

It is almost a cinch you will not

If you think you will lose, you are lost

For out in the world we find

Success begins with a fellow’s will

It is all in the state of mind

Cicero

If you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains, if you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains.

Maggie Kuhn

I enjoy my wrinkles and regard them as badges of distinction.

I have worked hard for them!

George Eliot

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

Aristotle

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

Joseph Alois Schumpeter

What we mean when we say we are for or against capitalism is that we like or dislike certain civilizations or scheme of life.

Eric Hoffer

It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncappitalist environment.

Kuan Chung

If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for ten years, plant a tree. If for a hundred years, teach the people. When you sow a seed once, you will reap a single harvest. When you teach the people, you will reap a hundred harvests.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He is only rich who owns the day. There is no king, rich man, fairy or demon who possesses such power as that. The days are made on a loom whereof the wrap and woof are past and future time.

John Donne

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears

Men reckon what it did and meant

But trepidation of the spheres

Though greater far is innocent

William Butler Yeats

But I being Poor, have only my dreams

I have spread my dreams under your feet

Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams

Ernest Dowson

They are not long, the days of wine and roses

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

With in a dream

Shakespeare

We are such stuff

As dreams are made on , and our little life

Is rounded out with a sleep

John Wesley

Do all the good you can

By all the means you can

In all the ways you can

In all the places you can

At all the times you can

To all the people you can

As long as ever you can

William P. Rogers

The world of the future will not flourish behind walls no matter who builds them and no matter what their purpose. A world divided economically must inevitably be a world divided politically. As secretary of State, I cannot contemplate that prospect with anything but deep disquiet.

Arthur S. Eddington

If I let my fingers wander idly over the keys of a typewriter it might happen that my screed made an intelligible sentence. If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum.

Winston Churchill

Twenty to twenty five! These are the years! Don’t be content with things as they are … Don’t take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations.

Samuel Johnson

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must all and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

Georges Clemenceau

A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he is not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.

Benedict Spinoza

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long is he determined not to do it; and consequently so long is it impossible to him that he should do it.

John Davison Rockefeller

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

The Mother – Deepak Kumar Pattanayak

Holy holier-divinely; 
Things are with her 
As perceived and adorned gracefully 
Lots of love and lots of pity 
Along she is carrying 
Of quintessence motherly 
In her exemplified 
The feminine persona so lovely 
More and more and not less 
I see and God confess 
She is holier than me 
Sent to care your needs 
Alleviate your sufferings 
Brighten your dreams 
Like an Angel in the morning 
Seen among lovely flowers 
Caressing and them preparing 
To see a beautiful day dawning 
And the day passed off peacefully 
Unto noon and evening 
And seen her bidding children 
Good-night with words so soothing 
Oh mother! what you are 
Made of which stuff so rare 
For me and for all 
You weep your tears 
A drop falls on him 
Another on her 
A dozen on them 
A few goes out 
To form an ocean 
Of love for your children 
Unto I would love 
Diving deep to die even 
For not in vain will go 
Your love and affection 
My dear my mother 
You are, I swear 
As good as heaven…… 

A Bride – Deepak Kumar Pattanayak

Upon the verge; 
Of some new dawn 
You blossom to be a woman 
And a bride of a man 
An angel of love and light 
Pure and faithful you become 
Bound soul to soul 
By life’s holiest laws 
Sent out from Heaven’s source 
Glow like a star on its course 
Abandon playthings of life 
To be entrusted noble work 
Of woman and of wife 
You are so happy now 
To be merged with someone’s life 
Tender smiles shine 
And lofty thoughts creep in 
Yet on promised land 
Of love and happiness 
Flowers blossom and perish 
Good and bad days rally 
May fall saddest tears daily 
But with love and love only 
You may sail through storm of life easily…………….

Hidden – Naomi Shihab Nye

If you place a fern 
under a stone 
the next day it will be 
nearly invisible 
as if the stone has 
swallowed it. 

If you tuck the name of a loved one 
under your tongue too long 
without speaking it 
it becomes blood 
sigh 
the little sucked-in breath of air 
hiding everywhere 
beneath your words. 

No one sees 
the fuel that feeds you. 

Lagdachha Malai Ramailo – Madhav Prasad Ghimire

लाग्दछ मलाई रमाइलो मेरै पाखा पखेरो
हिमालचुली मन्तिर पानी भर्ने पँधेरो

लेकै हेर्यौ लाली गुराँस बेंसी हेर्यो प्याउली
पिरती बास्ने परेवा बिरह बोल्ने न्याउली
हिमाल छुन्छ बेलुकी सप्तर्षिको ताँतीले
जुनेली रात बिताउँछु गाउँदा गाउँदै साथीले

सम्झन्छु म हिउँचुली आँसुको ढिका खसाली
यो बिरानो मुलुकमा बस्दैन माया बसाली
वनमा घाम नलागे जगत सारा अँधेरो
नौडाँडाको पारीमा प्रीतिको देश छ मेरो

मेरो कान्ले लेकैलाई पाकेर जाने बादल
हातले मैले नछोए पनि छ कति कोमल
डर लाग्छ मलाई यही बादलु छायाँले
पार्दछ जहाँ इन्द्रेणी पाइला भिज्ने मायाले

In Spring And Summer Winds May Blow – Walter Savage Landor

In spring and summer winds may blow,
And rains fall after, hard and fast;
The tender leaves, if beaten low,
Shine but the more for shower and blast

But when their fated hour arrives,
When reapers long have left the field,
When maidens rifle turn’d-up hives,
And their last juice fresh apples yield,

A leaf perhaps may still remain
Upon some solitary tree,
Spite of the wind and of the rain . . .
A thing you heed not if you see.

At last it falls. Who cares? Not one:
And yet no power on earth can ever
Replace the fallen leaf upon
Its spray, so easy to dissever.

If such be love, I dare not say.
Friendship is such, too well I know:
I have enjoyed my summer day;
‘Tis past; my leaf now lies below.

Summer – John Clare

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast;
She sits beneath the white thorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pink threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the white thorn bush where I will lean upon my lover’s breast;
I’ll lean upon her breast and I’ll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o’sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.

Any Night – Philip Levine

Look, the eucalyptus, the Atlas pine,
the yellowing ash, all the trees
are gone, and I was older than
all of them. I am older than the moon,
than the stars that fill my plate,
than the unseen planets that huddle
together here at the end of a year
no one wanted. A year more than a year,
in which the sparrows learned
to fly backwards into eternity.
Their brothers and sisters saw this
and refuse to build nests. Before
the week is over they will all
have gone, and the chorus of love
that filled my yard and spilled
into my kitchen each evening
will be gone. I will have to learn
to sing in the voices of pure joy
and pure pain. I will have to forget
my name, my childhood, the years
under the cold dominion of the clock
so that this voice, torn and cracked,
can reach the low hills that shielded
the orange trees once. I will stand
on the back porch as the cold
drifts in, and sing, not for joy,
not for love, not even to be heard.
I will sing so that the darkness
can take hold and whatever
is left, the fallen fruit, the last
leaf, the puzzled squirrel, the child
far from home, lost, will believe
this could be any night. That boy,
walking alone, thinking of nothing
or reciting his favorite names
to the moon and stars, let him
find the home he left this morning,
let him hear a prayer out
of the raging mouth of the wind.
Let him repeat that prayer,
the prayer that night follows day,
that life follows death, that in time
we find our lives. Don’t let him see
all that has gone. Let him love
the darkness. Look, he’s running
and singing too. He could be happy.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion, or some other inward emotion than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Since an intelligence common to us all makes things known to us and formulates them in our minds, honorable actions are ascribed by us to virtue, and dishonorable actions to vice; and only a madman would conclude that these judgments are matters of opinion, and not fixed by nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine, conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection, and I am inclined to think that, with the exception of wisdom, no better thing has been given to man by the immortal gods

Prem Sanket – Rabindra Nath Thakur

प्रियतम ! म जान्दछु, यो तिम्रो प्रेम हो जो पात–पातमा स्वर्णाभा
बनेर चम्किरहेछ !
जसले लोसे मेघ आकाशमा जम्मा भइरहेछन्, सुवासित पवनले मेरो
मस्तिष्कमा जलकण छर्छ :
यमि सबै, हे मनमोहन ईश्वर ! तिम्रो प्रेम नै हो ।

आज प्रभातका आकाश–धाराले मेरा नयन भरिए :
यो तिम्रो प्रेम–संकेत हो जो जीवनका कण–कणमा व्याप्त छ ।
तिम्रो चेहरा निहुरियो,
तिम्रो नेत्र मेरा नेत्रसँग मिले :
मेरो ह्दयले तिम्रो चरणमा स्पर्श गरिसक्यो !
प्रियतम ! म जान्दछु, यो तिम्रो प्रेम–संकेत हो ।

Sankalpa – Rabindra Nath Thakur

प्राणका प्राण ! म मेरो देहलाई चोखो राख्छु, किनकि मेरा अंग–
प्रत्यंगमा तिम्रो स्पर्श भएको छ !

आफ्ना विचारलाई असत्यले धमिलो पार्न दिनेछैन, किनकि तिमीले
सत्यको दीपकद्वारा मेरो विवेक प्रकाशित गरिदियौ !

म मेरो ह्दयमा पापलाई पस्नदिन्न, किनकि त्यहाँ तिम्रो मूर्ति
प्रतिष्ठासहित विद्यमान छ !
मेरा सबै काममा तिम्रो व्यक्तित्व हुनेछ, तिम्रो प्ररणानै रहनेछ !

Come To My Pavilion – Mirabai

Come to my pavilion, O my King.
I have spread a bed made of
delicately selected buds and blossoms,
And have arrayed myself in bridal garb
From head to toe.
I have been Thy slave during many births,
Thou art the be-all of my existence.
Mira’s Lord is Hari, the Indestructible.
Come, grant me Thy sight at once.

Mira is Steadfast – Mirabai

I will not be restrained now, O Rana,
Despite all you do to block my path.

I have torn off the veil of worldly shame;
Only the company of Saints is dear to me.

Merta, my parents’ home, I have left for good.
My surat and nirat, awakened,
Now shine bright.

My master has revealed to me
The mirror within my own body;
Now I’ll sing and dance in ecstasy.

Keep to your self your gems and jewelry;
I have discarded them all, O Rana.

My true Lord I have come to behold;
None knows of this wealth within the body.

I fancy not your forts and palaces
Nor want silken robes wrought with gold.

Mira, unadorned and unbedecked,
Roams intoxicated in the Lord’s love.

A Great Yogi – Mirabai

In my travels I spent time with a great yogi.
Once he said to me.
“Become so still you hear the blood flowing
through your veins.”

One night as I sat in quiet,
I seemed on the verge of entering a world inside so vast
I know it is the source of
all of
us.

Rabindranath Tagore

Men can only think. Women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was created out of Gods own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into shape.

The Lament Of The Old Nurse – Aeschylus

Our mistress bids me with all speed to call
Aegisthus to the strangers, that he come
And hear more clearly, as a man from man,
This newly brought report. Before her slaves,
Under set eyes of melancholy cast,
She hid her inner chuckle at the events
That have been brought to pass–too well for her,
But for this house and hearth most miserably,–
As in the tale the strangers clearly told.
He, when he hears and learns the story’s gist,
Will joy, I trow, in heart. Ah, wretched me!
How those old troubles, of all sorts made up,
Most hard to bear, in Atreus’s palace-halls
Have made my heart full heavy in my breast!
But never have I known a woe like this.
For other ills I bore full patiently,
But as for dear Orestes, my sweet charge,
Whom from his mother I received and nursed . . .
And then the shrill cries rousing me o’ nights,
And many and unprofitable toils
For me who bore them. For one needs must rear
The heedless infant like an animal,
(How can it else be?) as his humor serve
For while a child is yet in swaddling clothes,
It speaketh not, if either hunger comes,
Or passing thirst, or lower calls of need;
And children’s stomach works its own content.
And I, though I foresaw this, call to mind,
How I was cheated, washing swaddling clothes,
And nurse and laundress did the selfsame work.
I then with these my double handicrafts,
Brought up Orestes for his father dear;
And now, woe’s me! I learn that he is dead,
And go to fetch the man that mars this house;
And gladly will he hear these words of mine.

The Appointed Time – Aeschylus

Yet though a man gets many wounds in breast,
He diet not, unless the appointed time,
The limit of his life’s span, coincide;
Nor does the man who by the hearth at home
Sits still, escape the doom that Fate decrees.

Aeschylus

Justice shines in very smoky homes, and honors the righteous; but the gold-spangled mansions where the hands are unclean she leaves with eyes averted.

Aeschylus

Like a bad doctor who has fallen down sick you are cast down, and cannot find what sort of drugs would cure your ailment.

Maya Ko Dhisko – Abhi Subedi

धेरै बगेपछि
आँशु जस्तो पानी
सुकेर गए पनि
आकाशमा कटक्क माया लाग्ने
ढिस्को बनाएर जाँदो रहेछ ।

Nichorera Sukayeko Akash – Abhi Subedi

आकाशबाट
धर्धरी
भक्कानो फोरेर रोएको
कानमा खसेपछि
वेगले भेट्न दौडेँ,
पृथ्वी मेरो मोटरसाइकलको चक्कामा
पहिरन अल्झाएर
झन्डै नाङ्गिइन्,
पानी जस्तै थ्याच्च बसिन्
म भिजेको सरि
मायाले टाँगिएँ र
एक निचरेर सुकाएको हलुका आकाश भएँ ।

Jahan Bhamar Chha – Prakash Sayami

जहाँ भामर छ त्यही तिम्रो सिम्सार
तिमी विना चल्दैन मेरो पनि संसार

मन हो गीत कुन मसीले लेखूँ ?
सबै सपना कुन धागोले जोडूँ ?
तिम्रो हाँसो मेरो परिवर्तनको धार

नदेखेको सपना प्यारो भो सानु
नहिँडेको बाटो एक्लै कहाँ जानू
तिमी नै मेरो जीवनको आधार

जहाँ भामर छ त्यही तिम्रो सिम्सार
तिमी विना चल्दैन मेरो पनि संसार

Jaanda Jaandai – Prakash Sayami

जाँदाजाँदै आज फेरि मन उधारै रह्यो
ढोकैसम्म पुगेर पनि पाइला संघारै रह्यो

छिचोलेरै पुगेको’थेँ कति आँखा बाधा थिए
चाहनाथ्यौ तिमी मेरो सपना पनि आधा थिए
खोलुँ भन्थेँ मनको ढोका सबै अपुरै रह्यो
ढोकासम्म पुगेर पनि पाइला संघारै रह्यो

काँढामाथि टेक्नु पर्यो त्यो पनि त सहेकै’थेँ
दुनियाँ नै वैरी हुँदा तिम्रो आफ्नो भएकै’थेँ
कुन सिमाना कोर्यौ दैव ! बोली अधुरै रह्यो
ढोकैसम्म पुगेर पनि पाइला संघारै रह्यो

When Great Trees Fall – Maya Angelou

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

Maya Angelou

Stories of law violations are weighed on a different set of scales in the Black mind than in the white. Petty crimes embarrass the community and many people wistfully wonder why Negroes don’t rob more banks, embezzle more funds and employ graft in the unions…. This … appeals particularly to one who is unable to compete legally with his fellow citizens.”

Maya Angelou

Strictly speaking, one cannot legislate love, but what one can do is legislate fairness and justice. If legislation does not prohibit our living side by side, sooner or later your child will fall on the pavement and I’ll be the one to pick her up. Or one of my children will not be able to get into the house and you’ll have to say, “Stop here until your mom comes here.” Legislation affords us the chance to see if we might love each other.”

Maya Angelou

The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

We are not cave dwellers anymore, we live in the age of technology. When someone needs a car, he does not need to build it. He can buy it. When someone needs a murder, he himself does not need to kill. He can order it.