Walt Whitman Quotes

The real problem in Mississippi is almost a complete moral breakdown. In order to move Mississippi from the bottom to the top, all we have to do is just get people to do a little more what they know, to practice a little more of what they preach.

Reform must come from within and not from without. You cannot legislate for virtue.

We should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do.

Preach in your own house and to your own company

Correcting oneself is correcting the whole world. The Sun is simply bright. It does not correct anyone. Because it shines, the whole world is full of light. Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world.

The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves.

Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer; for it prevents those disorders which other remedies sometimes cure, but sometimes confirm.

Charles Dickens' creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race - I say it in all seriousness - than Cardinal Newman's Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.

Would you make men better - set them an example. The millenium will never come until governments cease from governing, and the meddler is at rest.

The number one responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow.

To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others to transform themselves or to bring about a modified change through revolution, either of the left or of the right. It is important to understand that this is our responsibility, yours and mine.

People must be changed...goodness cannot be legislated.

I hope that's what I've taught my girls - to be fair, to recognize their own position and their own good fortune, to use their voices to make things better. Beyond that, I'd tell them just to be kind.

Be the most ethical, the most responsible, the most authentic you can be with every breath you take, because you are cutting a path into tomorrow that others will follow.

If we would mend the World, we should mend Ourselves; and teach our Children to be, not what we are, but what they should be.

Behave like the human being you wish all would be

Do well and right and let the world sink.

The most difficult matter is not so much to change the world as yourself.

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life

The world is in such a mess because of the continuous conflict that arises between human beings - not only between individuals but between tribes and nations and this group and that group and so on. But change can come in only when people start with themselves.

Make yourself as happy as possible, and try to make those happy whose lives come in touch with yours. But to attempt to right the wrongs and cease the sufferings of the world in general is a waste of effort.

Make of yourself a light.

The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.

We must become the people we want our children to be.

Faith teaches that there is a right and wrong beyond mere opinion or desire. Most importantly, it teaches us that freedom is not an end in itself, that how freedom is exercised matters as much as freedom itself