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Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

letter to Connecticut Baptists

 

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Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.

 

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People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

 

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We are all something, but none of us are everything.

 

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The conception of worth, that each person is an end per se, is not a mere abstraction. Our interest in it is not merely academic. Every outcry against the oppression of some people by other people, or against what is morally hideous is the affirmation of the principle that a human being as such is not to be violated. A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered. [From: An Ethical Philosophy of Life]

 

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The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear.

 

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Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.

 

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The person that loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.



John Dewey:

 

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The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity

 

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Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.

 

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Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world.

 

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No one, Eleanor Roosevelt said, can make you feel inferior without your consent. Never give it.

 

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I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.

 

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The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to the strength of the spirit.

 

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Conservatism is more candid to behold another's worth; reform more disposed to maintain and increase its own.


The Conservative

 

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There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it behooves all of us not to talk about the rest of us.

 

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I always try to believe the best of everybody -- it saves so much trouble.



Sogyal Rinpoche:

 

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...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.



Virginia Satir:

 

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Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible -- the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.

 

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Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself