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"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. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents. And to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of all that is bad around us is itself a marvelous victory." -Howard Zinn

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notes from home

On civil society, sustainable and equitable development, the Philippines, and life in general.

Friday, December 4, 2009

11:31 pm

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.

— Vaclav Havel

Friday, December 4, 2009

11:11 pm

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson (via janettt) (via quote-book) (via infinitebutterflies) (via thresca)

Sunday, November 8, 2009

10:02 am

I want to beg of you much as I can to be patient
toward all that’s unsolved in your heart,
and learn to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms, or like books that are
written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you,
because you would not be able to live them,
and the point is to live everything.

Live the question now,
perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.

—

Rainer Maria Rilke

(via omgitsjpax) (via quote-book) (via exiledsoul) (via poetrynews) (via curate)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

9:31 pm

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

— Ayn Rand (via quotewhore) (via themorninglight)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

7:22 am

Nobody can know whether they’re going to be successful. That’s a complete mystery. But it’s not about learning a certain kind of technique. It’s about taking a walk and seeing somebody crying and feeling a certain way about it and thinking – I have to do something to respond to that. It’s about telling a story that feels true to you and trying not trying to be anything other than who you are. That’s an absurdly difficult thing to do and it takes many years.

— Maira Kalman (via tenrewnna) (via constantwanderlust)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

4:06 am