“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.”
“So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And when I’m sometimes asked ‘When will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]?’ and I say ‘When there are nine,’ people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, speaking at the 10th Circuit Bench & Bar Conference in 2012
“The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.”— from her 2012 book “My Own Words.”
“We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‘We, the people.’” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg
A Medley By Melba Christie
RBG
You were the first justice I remember to decree
the rights of women and their equality
are important and a necessity.
You instilled in all of us
the need to look at our humanity.
You taught us to fight for the things that matter.
You reminded us that “we the people”
are resilient and included us all without exceptions.
You were never about the false perceptions.
You cared about the Supreme Court’s institution
and carried in your heart our constitution.
Your strength and courage remained constant in the service of
the demand for justice
I truly hope your dissents
one day become laws
God only knows our society is full of flaws.
No one and nothing is perfection
Anger, resentment, envy, and self-pity are wasteful reactions.
Unfortunately, they still exist here and now
But I promise from this day forward
and make this vow
My grand daughters and grand sons will know you well
and learn
how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like,
color of their skin, whether they’re men or women.
When I am a little stressed I look for quotes that help me make sense of things. My sixth grade teacher and my dad instilled this practice in me. Mrs. McCann was always quoting someone. She would say that the person she was quoting said it the best. My dad on the other hand would clip quotes from newspapers and magazines and post them on a small bulletin board for us to read. He also wrote down his favorite quotes and sayings in journals and notebooks.
I looked in my old journals and in numerous books I have with collections of quotes.
Here are some I found that resonate with me today. Who or what comes to mind when you read some of these quotes. I would love to hear from you.
“The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions.” – Susan Sontag
“It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.” – Howard Huff
“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.” – Eric Hoffer
“Remember always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself” — Richard Nixon
“What probably distorts everything in life is that one is convinced that one is speaking the truth because one says what one thinks.” – Sacha Guitry
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”– Maya Angelou
Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic. Henry Adams
“If you are honest, truthful, and transparent, people trust you. If people trust you, you have no grounds for fear, suspicion or jealousy.”– Dalai Lama
“I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow” — Woodrow Wilson
Presidents are not only the country’s principal policy chief, shaping the nation’s domestic and foreign agendas, but also the most visible example of our values- RobertDallek
As far as I know we do not celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on the exact day February 12 anymore. We celebrate President’s Day instead. No wonder some children have no idea which presidents we celebrate. I asked a 10 year old and he thought the days off are to celebrate all our presidents. Most schools close for a long weekend and of course we all look forward to the sales. But I wonder how many of us remember the date.
Well I want to celebrate Abe Lincoln and remind people of some facts (not alternative ones) and some of his thoughtful, eloquent oratory. Abraham was the 16th president of the United States. He was born in 1809 and died victim of an assassination on April 15, 1865. He was still in office when his assassin John Wilkes Booth shot him at the Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Lincoln was born in Kentucky and the son of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. His mother died when he was just nine years old. He was self educated and loved to read. He ended up in the state of Illinois and became a lawyer and later ran as a Republican for a seat in the state senate and won at the age of twenty-five. He later became a congressman. He married Mary Todd and had four children.
We need to remember him for his Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863 ordering for the freeing of slaves. This set forth the 13th Amendment which would free all slaves in the United States a few years later. During the Civil War Mr. Lincoln held the country together.
He is remembered for one of the greatest speeches in American History, He gave the speech at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863. It’s called the Gettysburg Address.
My first memory of knowing about our 16th president was a poem my teacher read us. She told us about how honorable and honest he was growing up and throughout his life. Two pretty good traits for a president.
I recently visited a family member whose home was built in 1865 and I had a flash back to that moment in my childhood when my teacher emphasized the importance of honest. I looked around the house. It was built around the time we had lost a great and beloved president. He was just fifty-two years old.
“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
Here are a few of the quotes I remember learning about in school and thank my teacher for teaching us that these were quotes to live by. I think we must remember their value.
“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Yesterday was a historic day and no matter what side you take, we are obligated to go back and seek the wisdom and even the not so smart doings in our history. It is said that history repeats itself. It is also said that it takes many lives to learn our lessons well.
I am encouraged to look for the teachings of all great leaders but also of the horrible ones. We must read with careful analysis and be able to make intelligent inferences. In the end it boils down to one very important concept: To thyself be true and the truth will prevail.
QUOTES
God bless America!
“From the outset, Hamilton feared an unholy trinity of traits in a future president — ambition, avarice and vanity,” – Federalist Papers
“How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” ― Thomas Jefferson
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”Amendment I,
– The U.S. Constitution
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Thomas Jefferson
“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.” -Thomas Jefferson
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
“Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
These are just a few of my favorite quotes. I think they are timeless. I hope we reflect on his wisdom and move to act and do what Is right to honor him.
Above is a drew on my iPad when I was looking ofr some kind of inspiration. I found the Chines proverb and drew the tree which I call:Tree of Inspiration.
Here are the quotes to fulfill the three quote challenge.
“Joy is an internal process grounded in knowledge of spiritual truth, the ability to trust
the wisdom of the Divine, and faith in the perfect and perfecting process of life.”
– Lyanla Vanzant
“It is better in prayer to have a heart without words and words without a heart.”
-Mahatma Ghandi
“Allow your heart to sing and dance and kick off its shoes when you are lonely or fearful. A Divine feeling of freedom will keep you company instead.”
Poemattic: Poetry and Art for the Soul 
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