The Clarity Blog

“I am an optimist. It’s going OK. I don’t believe anyone is going to stop the spirit of all the humans out there.”                                    
– Gillian Welch

“Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world…”
– Maggie Smith, Good Bones

“Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.”
– Alice Walker

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.” – Howard Zinn

“Possibility is not a luxury; it is as crucial as bread.” – Judith Butler

“There is a myth that the purpose of education is to give one the means for upward mobility and success. The plain truth is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does need desperately more peacemakers, healers, restorers, story tellers, and lovers…” – David W. Orr

“It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.” – Dr. Seuss

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne 

“So many institutions in our society need reinventing. The time has come for a new dream. That’s what being a revolutionary is.” – Grace Lee Bogs

“It is so important that we fight for the future, get into the game, get dirty, get experimental. How do we create and proliferate a compelling vision of economies and ecologies that center humans and the natural world over the accumulation of material?” – adrienne maree brown

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world ….” – Joanna Macy

“When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality.” – Pema Chödrön

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

“I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 1963

“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.” – Margaret Atwood

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”   – Lao Tzu