"This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement. Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules."

-

President Barack Obama (via azspot)

Now let’s see some action behind those words and maybe I’ll like you again.

(via azspot)

"You will observe that the future is usually imagined as either better or worse than
the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory."

- Eckhart Tolle

"The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present: the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never really lived."

Such a good argument

(via journeytoenlightenment-deactiva)

"The Buddha compared being angry with picking up hot coals with bare hands and trying to throw them at one’s enemy. Who gets burnt first? The one who’s picking up the coals, of course — the one who is angry. We may not even hit the target we are aiming at, because if that person is clever and practiced enough, he’ll duck — and we shall still have burnt hands."

- Ayya Khema, “When the Iron Eagle Flies” (via journeytoenlightenment)

(via journeytoenlightenment-deactiva)

"It may seem absurd to believe that a “primitive” culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned."

- Helena Norberg-Hodge

(via livethetao)

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."

- Henry David Thoreau

"There are a lot of problems we currently face and many are in need of imminent solution. Therefore, we cannot spend our precious time further polarizing one another. How are we to solve such great problems if we cannot interact in a mutually respectful manner individually? Humanity is not composed of “sides,” there are no factions, borders, divides and there is no “us” or “them.” We are one and we must act as one to solve the problems we currently face. When one person suffers, we all suffer. When one person is disrespected, we all are. We must always show kindness and a respect for one’s dignity towards all people that we may encounter. If we wish to truly eradicate hatred and feelings of ill-will, we must start with our so-called “enemies.” If we treat our enemies as we do our friends, they will not be our enemies for long."

- Mohandas Gandhi (via azspot)