“As you move forward along the path of reason, people will stand in your way. They will never be able to keep you from doing what’s sound, so don’t let them knock out your goodwill for them. Keep a steady watch on both fronts, not only for well-based judgments and actions, but also for gentleness with those who would obstruct our path or create other difficulties. For getting angry is also a weakness, just as much as abandoning the task or surrendering under panic. For doing either is an equal desertion – the one by shrinking back and the other by estrangement from family and friend.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.9

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862 – 1931), journalist, civil rights campaigner and suffragette, born on this day

“When you have warfare things happen; people suffer; the noncombatants suffer as well as the combatants. And so it happens in civil war. When your forefathers threw the tea into Boston harbour, a good many women had to go without their tea. It has always seemed to me an extraordinary thing that you did not follow it up by throwing the whiskey overboard; you sacrificed the women; and there is a good deal of warfare for which men take a great deal of glorification which has involved more practical sacrifice on women than it has on any man. It always has been so. The grievances of those who have got power, the influence of those who have got power commands a great deal of attention; but the wrongs and the grievances of those people who have no power at all are apt to be absolutely ignored. That is the history of humanity right from the beginning…

Women are very slow to rouse, but once they are aroused, once they are determined, nothing on earth and nothing in heaven will make women give way; it is impossible… their spirits are unquenched .. and they mean to go on as long as life lasts..

The people whom you have been accustomed to look upon as weak and reliant, the people you have always thought leaned upon other people for protection, have stood up and are fighting for themselves. Women have found a new kind of self-respect, a new kind of energy, a new kind of strength.”

From “Freedom or Death” speech, delivered in Hartford, Connecticut on 13 November 1913, by Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 – 1928), born on this day

“Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don’t change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.”

Woody Guthrie (1912 – 1967), born on this day

“One person, on doing well by others, immediately accounts the expected favour in return. Another is not so quick, but still considers the person a debtor and knows the favour. A third kind of person acts as if not conscious of the deed, rather like a vine producing a cluster of grapes without making further demands, like a horse after its race, or a dog after its walk, or a bee after making its honey. Such a person, having done a good deed, won’t go shouting from rooftops but simply moves on to the next deed just like the vine produces another bunch of grapes in the right season.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.6

“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil–to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks–who had a genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander…

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.”

From Walking by Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862), Transcendentalist, born on this day

“Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.”

E. B. White (1899 – 1985), writer, born on this day

“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”

Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903), painter, born on this day

“The storm don’t steer the ship.
Storm may push it, toss it, rock it, crack it,
even sink it.
But it takes a knowing mind and guiding sense to steer a ship toward safety.
It takes a memory of the harbor haven
to guide a body soaked with fear, pushing
against the wind

It takes faith to hold out
for the storm to run out of rain.”

From Incantations for Rest by Atena O. Danner, Unitarian Universalist minister

“Open our eyes so we may recognise that of God in all those we meet..
Open our ears to hear other people’s life stories and, through hearing, understand them better..
Open our mouths to speak words of friendship and kindness to strangers..
Open our arms to help tear down the barriers of fear that divide one group from another..
Open our minds to think bigger, braver thoughts and go beyond our narrow prejudices..
Open our hearts so love may flow through us, creating this world as one community which rejoices in people’s diversity and encourages the inclusion of all.”

Sarah Tinker, Unitarian minister, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection