Some prescient words and inspiration from the past -- relevant to today's challenges and the human condition.
   -SM

In order to succeed, we must answer our opponent's polished and appealing rhetoric with a more telling reasonableness and rationality. We must win this case on the merits. We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship - to reality, to the hard substance of things. And we will do that not so much with speeches that sound good as with speeches that are good and sound.
    Governor Mario Cuomo
    July 17, 2984 - Democratic Convention Keynote Address

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.
    Elie Weisel
    April 12, 1999 - "Perils of Indifference"

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: The right to criticize; The right to hold unpopular beliefs; The right to protest; The right of independent thought...
    Senator Margaret Chase Smith
    June 1, 1950 - "Declaration of Conscience"

Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.
    Martin Luther King, Jr.
    April 3, 1968 - "I've Been To The Mountaintop"

Clearly, if the peoples of the world are to conduct an intelligent search for peace, they must be armed with the significant facts of today's existence...

In this quest, I know that we must not lack patience. I know that in a world divided, such as ours today, salvation cannot be attained by one dramatic act.  I know that many steps will have to be taken over many months before the world can look at itself one day and truly realize that a new climate of mutually peaceful confidence is abroad in the world. But I know, above all else, that we must start to take these steps now.
    Dwight Eisenhower
    December 8, 1953 - UN General Assembly, "Atoms for Peace"

The development of the ideal of freedom and its translation into the everyday life of the people in great areas of the earth is the product of the efforts of many peoples. It is the fruit of a long tradition of vigorous thinking and courageous action. No one race and or one people can claim to have done all the work to achieve greater dignity for human beings and great freedom to develop human personality. In each generation and in each country there must be a continuation of the struggle and new steps forward must be taken since this is preeminently a field in which to stand still is to retreat.
    Eleanor Roosevelt
    September 28, 1948 - "The Struggle for Human Rights"