Moving some of my miscellaneous notes over; here are a few quotes attributed to Lao Tzu:

When the best student hears about the way
He practices it assiduously;
When the average student hears about the way
It seems to him one moment there and gone the next;
When the worst student hears about the way
He laughs out loud.
If he did not laugh
It would be unworthy of being the way.


Those who are good I treat as good. Those who are not good I also treat as good. In so doing I gain in goodness. Those who are of good faith I have faith in. Those who are lacking in good faith I also have faith in. In so doing I gain in good faith.


A man is supple and weak when living, but hard and stiff when dead. Grass and trees are pliant and fragile when living, but dried and shriveled when dead. Thus the hard and the strong are the comrades of death; the supple and the weak are the comrades of life.

Moving some of my miscellaneous notes over; here are some collected quotations attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (also see http://www.quotegeek.com)


Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values -- that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.

Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

HOLY SHAMOLEY. It's been three months since I've posted? Wow. Sorry about the delay. I'm going to use the following excuse: I entered grad school last semester and, although I never thought it could happen, I needed a break from reading and writing. Just to get something out here, tonight I've posted a couple of excerpts from In Our Poverty. Classes start again in a week. Hopefully I'll post before June.

IT IS IMPORTANT for a Christian to ask himself what he means by “the world,” because if he unquestioningly loves everything in and about the world then he will end up loving things he has no business loving, thinking things he has no business thinking, wanting things he has no business wanting, and doing things he has no business doing. The fulfillment of lust, greed and covetousness will eventually become the same for him as the concept of beauty, art or true love. Ultimately, there will be no difference to him between the thrill of settling a legal case for a million-five split three ways and the joy of watching his handicapped daughter take her first unaided steps.

On the other hand, if a man blindly judges the totality of the world abhorrent, he will end up hating things he should be loving, rejecting things he should be accepting, demonizing things he should be enjoying, and ignoring things he was placed here to attend. He will be much like the first man because ultimately he too will find lust, greed and covetousness to be on par with beauty, art and true love.

The only real difference between the two men is that the second is actually worse off than the first, because he will have no compassion and will not find a taste of true joy in even the most stirring of God’s creation. The man of the world who finds some sort of thrill and pleasure in every possible thing he can experience is more honest and knows a bit more of God than a pious religious man who scowls in his heart at every single created thing because he believes the whole world belongs to Satan, yet secretly he loves at least parts of it.

EACH PERSON is a unique creation, but we all have a common purpose. We all have a common beginning and a common end. We are all searching for the same thing. We are all born of the same God. We are all brothers and sisters.

I have a special kind of brother, a brother beyond the limits of blood and body and household, who lives his life in loneliness. He is shameful and destitute and dirty and begs for money to buy alcohol so he can spend his evening hours drinking alone in the desert behind a supermarket, to fall asleep only to awaken with a hangover that is so much a part of his life he no longer notices it. I do not know when nor where he was born, nor his mother's name. I do not know if he has ever loved a woman, or if somewhere he has a child he thinks about with longing in his inebriation and guilt in his sobriety. The only thing I know about him is that quite likely the only difference between he and I, at some point in our lives, was no more than a few choices made at just the wrong or right times, and that these choices may have been made for us rather than by us. He is my brother because when I look into his eyes, red and watering and somewhat unfocused, and I see in them a longing for the same things I long for in life—love, mercy, a modicum of respect, the unmerited grace of God—I know that ultimately we are the same.

Do I mean to say that the pathetic creature on the sidewalk who can scarcely stand, who reeks of stale beer and his own urine, who wants money from me only so he can buy his next bottle for the night, is my brother? Yes, I do. He is my brother, and along with him a great number of people we might consider even more vile and disgusting, as well as millions of people whom society considers quite successful and have no clue they are suffering from a pitiful spiritual bankruptcy. They are all my brothers and sisters, and they all walk this earth no more and no less a child of God than I.

It is not any more complicated than this, and it would not surprise me a bit if some of them enter Heaven well before I do. They are my siblings in God, and I wish no less for them.