You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

I truly believe we should
never give up on our
hopes and dreams.
The path may be rocky and
twisted, but the world is
waiting for that special
contribution each of us
was born to make.
What it takes is
the courage to follow
those whispers of wisdom
that guide us from the inside.
When I listen to that
I expect nothing less
than a miracle.

--Marilyn Johnson Kondwani

Always hold firmly to the thought that each one of us can do something to bring some portion of misery to an end.

--from a poster by Bonnie Acker in Tools for Change, the catalog of Syracuse Cultural Workers

It is not enough to be compassionate; you
must act.

--the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Cyatso, 1992

Liberation theology is about God’s preferential option for the poor. We work for their liberation because God has chosen them, period—not because they are better than anybody else, or because they will do better if they are helped.

--Marc Ellis, University Professor of American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University

No society can be truly said to be civilized when one of its citizens goes to bed hungry on a day when there is surplus food available.

--from America’s Second Harvest

No matter what our attempts to inform, it is our ability to inspire that will turn the tides.

--Jan Philips, from the mission statement of Syracuse Cultural Workers

There was a time when people thought everyone had a right to eat. During the Depression, neighbor took care of neighbor; that’s how they got through it. Then people had nothing. Today people have everything, and yet we’re still more polarized -- rich and poor, black and white -- than we’ve ever been before.

--Father Ray, ABC’s “Nothing Sacred”

-- Art by Lenora Mathis, a freshman at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.