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.
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Global thinking and local action both require understanding of ecological systems, but ecological management can be effective only if it takes into consideration the visceral and spiritual values that link us to the earth. Therefore ecological thinking must be supplemented by humanistic value judgments concerning the effect of our choices and actions on the quality of the relationship between humankind and earth, in the future as well as in the present.
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Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.
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Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.
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For good and evil in our actions meet; wicked is not much worse than indiscreet
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Not lived; for life doth her great actions spell, By what was done and wrought...
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There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as Justice. Most of the other virtues are the virtues of created Beings, or accommodated to our nature as we are men. Justice is that which is practised by God himself, and to be practised in its perfection by none but him. Omniscience and Omnipotence are requisite for the full exertion of it. The one, to discover every degree of uprightness or iniquity in thoughts, words and actions. The other, to measure out and impart suitable rewards and punishments. As to be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature, to be so to the utmost of our abilities is the glory of a man. Such an one who has the publick administration in his hands, acts like the representative of his Maker, in recompencing the virtuous, and punishing the offender.
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''Violence' vs. Passivism: Last Century's 'Underground Railroad' illegally helped human slaves escape from bondage. They recognized the laws that legalized slavery were morally wrong and should not be legitimized with compliance. They risked their own freedom by violating the property rights of slave owners and leading slaves to freedom. Today, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) risk their freedom to liberate innocent animals that are immorally abused/injured/murdered by actions that violate the property rights of animal abusers. Animals are covertly removed from danger and placed in foster care facilities. Torturing equipment like stereotaxic devices/decapitators/restraining devices, etc. are damaged or destroyed to prevent their further use. No human or non-human animal is ever harmed in any way.'
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Socrates famously said that the unconsidered life is not worth living. He meant that a life lived without forethought or principle is a life so vulnerable to chance, and so dependent on the choices and actions of others, that it is of little real value to the person living it. He further meant that a life well lived is one which has goals, and integrity, which is chosen and directed by the one who lives it, to the fullest extent possible to a human agent caught in the webs of society and history.
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We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
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And first Satan's endeavours have ever been, and they cease not yet to instill a belief in the minde of man, There is no God at all. . . . that the necessity of his entity dependeth upon ours, and is but a Politicall Chymera. . . . Where he succeeds not thus high, he labours to introduce a secondary and deductive Atheisme; that although, men concede there is a God, yet . . . that he intendeth only the care of the species or common natures, but letteth loose the guard of individuals, and single existencies therein: That he looks not below the Moon, but hath designed the regiment of sublunary affairs unto inferiour deputations. To promote which apprehensions or empuzzell their due conceptions, he casteth in the notions of fate, destiny, fortune, chance and necessity. . . . Whereby extinguishing in mindes the compensation of vertue and vice, the hope and fear of heaven or hell; they comply in their actions unto the drift of his delusions. . . .
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It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.
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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.
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The good devout man first makes inner preparation for the actions he has later to perform. His outward actions do not draw him into lust and vice; rather it is he who bends them into the shape of reason and right judgement. Who has a stiffer battle to fight than the man who is striving to conquer himself.
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Until we can own our centuries old distortion of God's word, we will probably never really move off the dime in current distortions of God's word. There is no special merit in declaring that what we hold now is part of the 'faith once delivered to the saints' or 'the church's teaching from the beginning.' We have been consistently right in some things -- consistently wrong in others. I believe... that our 'teaching' has often been racist and misogynist -- not always through our documents, but with winks, jokes, the language of our prayers, exclusionary policies and actions and the toleration of domestic violence and violence against minorities. This is not rocket science. When we do not intervene in long patterns of abuse, we tolerate and support that abuse -- and our silence speaks our doctrine, doesn't it?
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We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
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Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
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Nun: You don't believe in God because of Alice in Wonderland? Loki: No, 'Through the Looking Glass.' That poem, 'The Walrus and the Carpenter,' that's an indictment of organized religion. The walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or...or with his tusk, the Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha. That takes care of your Eastern religions. Now the carpenter, which is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter's son, he represents the Western religions. Now in the poem, what do they do...what do they do? They...they dupe all these oysters into following them and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en masse. I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following these faiths based on mythological figures ensure the destruction of one's inner being. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions...by inhibiting our decisions, out of...out of fear of some...some intangible parent figure who...who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says...and says, 'Do it-do it and I'll fuckin' spank you!'
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The good devout man first makes inner preparation for the actions he has later to perform. His outward actions do not draw him into lust and vice rather it is he who bends them into the shape of reason and right judgement. Who has a stiffer battle to fight than the man who is striving to conquer himself.
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Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.
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Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
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Nothing’s changed my life more. I feel better about myself as a person, being conscious and responsible for my actions and I lost weight and my skin cleared up and I got bright eyes and I just became stronger and healthier and happier. Can’t think of anything better in the world to be but be vegan.
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We start believing that someone knows how we feel, and let them overrule our judgments so we will take action. The beginning is when a person partakes of one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic to help them reduce their feelings of difference at least enough so that they will begin to take actions they do not yet believe in. When that moment comes, sobriety begins.
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The essence of destiny: Watch your thoughts for they become words. Choose your words for they become actions. Understand your actions for they become habit. Study your habits for they become your character. Develop your character for it becomes your destiny.
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[The superior man] acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.
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Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
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Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast...and one day you will build something that endures, something worthy of your potential.
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Dreams have as much influence as actions.
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At the heart of the debate over intelligent design is this question: Can a scientific explanation of the history of life include the actions of an unseen higher being? The proponents of intelligent design, a school of thought that some have argued should be taught alongside evolution in the nation's schools, say that the complexity and diversity of life go beyond what evolution can explain. Biological marvels like the optical precision of an eye, the little spinning motors that propel bacteria and the cascade of proteins that cause blood to clot, they say, point to the hand of a higher being at work in the world.
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If there has been any crime, it must be prosecuted. If there has been any property of the United States illegally transferred or leased, it must be recovered. I propose to employ special counsel of high rank drawn from both political parties to bring such actions for the enforcement of the law. Counsel will be instructed to prosecute these cases in the courts so that if there is any guilt it will be punished; if there is any civil liability it will be enforced; if there is any fraud it will be revealed; and if there are any contracts which are illegal they will be canceled. Every law will be enforced. And every right of the people and the Government will be protected.
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