We have never arrived. We are in a constant state of becoming. — Bob Dylan (Nobel Laureate!)

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime. But first of all, check if he likes fish. — Dusan Ondrusek (a friend, former colleague and mentor of mine from Slovakia.)

 
Storms make trees take deeper roots. — Dolly Parton

…anger occupies the mind, leaving no room for creativity. — David Lynch

 
You got to look at the bright side. Even if there ain’t one. — Dashiell Hammett

 
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come it. — Alan Alda

It takes a long time to become young. — Pablo Picasso

Peace cannot be kept by force. IT can only be achieved by understanding. — Albert Einstein

 
The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation. — Bertrand Russell

Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. –Gertrude Stein

 
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. — Isaac Asimov

Recognize yourself in others. — Nadine Gordimer

Folks, here are a few more amazing folks and their inspiring and insightful words. 
You can make a fresh start with your final breath. — Bertolt Brecht

Walls turned sideways are bridges. — Angela Davis

Nice guys finish first. If you don’t know that, then you don’t know where the finish line is. — Garry Shandling

Try to love someone who you want to hate, because they are just like you, somewhere inside, in a way you may never expect, in a way that resounds so deeply within you that you cannot believe it.  — Margaret Cho

Forgiveness is giving up on the idea of a better past.  –William Faulkner  (There is some mystery surrounding this quote — it’s been attributed to Lily Tomlin, Oprah Winfrey, and Unknown. Props to anyone who can help me verify!)

For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. — Lily Tomlin

In order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind. — Madeleine Albright

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do. — Ray Bradbury

You build on failure, You use it as a stepping stone. — Johnny Cash

Be curious, not judgmental. — Walt Whitman

We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.  — Stephen Hawking

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.  — Charles Mingus

We are honored, thrilled, and deeply moved to be a finalist for the New York Community Trust’s Non-Profit Excellence Award!  

Here’s our team’s reaction:

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent. — Jimmy Carter

Don’t wait for a Gandhi, don’t wait for a King, don’t wait for a Mandela. You are your own Mandela, you are your own Gandhi, you are your own King.  — Leymah Gbowee

Childhood is that state which ends the moment a puddle is first viewed as an obstacle instead of an opportunity.  — Michael K. Williams

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. — GeorgeOrwell

I can’t understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I’m frightened by old ones. — John Cage

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn. — Gloria Steinem

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more beautifully, more intensely, more devotedly than ever before. — Leonard Bernstein

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. — Indira Gandhi

Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.  — Milan Kundera

There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree. — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

To sustain hatred is a very difficult thing to do, year after year. It’s exhausting. –Nick Cave

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought. — Oliver Sacks

We don’t see things as they are, we seem them as we are. — Anais Nin

I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.  — Gustav Mahler

Since we live in this world, we have to do our best for this world. –Aung San Suu Kyi

I can’t judge the way other people behave. I can only look at myself. — Cyndi Lauper

There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence. — Cesar Chavez

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. — James Baldwin

Just because something happens, because it is true, because the facts are correct, does not ensure that it is the truth.  — John Waters

Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. — Gilda Radner

How come we play war and not peace? Not enough role models.  — Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

I have always been a learner because I knew nothing. — Sidney Poitier

We spend so much of our early lives trying to figure out who we really are. And we spend the rest of our lives preparing ourselves to let it go.  — John Cameron Mitchell

Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute. — Edgar Allen Poe

If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive? — Edward Albee (Rest in peace…)

When there’s no mutual respect, there’s trouble. — Dizzy Gillespie

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.  — Oscar Wilde

I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.  — Eleanor Roosevelt

I don’t remember Moses writing, thou shalt not kill…unless you have a good reason. — Willie Nelson

Peace is the only battle worth waging.  — Albert Camus

There is peace even in the storm.  — Vincent Van Gogh

When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. — Brenda Ueland

We can’t change the world until we change ourselves — Biggie Smalls

Human life has meaning…as long as it is lived in the service of humanity. — Wole Soyinka

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.  — Fred Rogers

The nature of human beings must change. We must cultivate love and compassion. — Martin Scorcese

You jump on a bike and start pedaling. You fall down and get up again. — Judah Friedlander