Tharwacolytes

Fear does not breed virtue.

Believe like a terrorist, but love like a saint, and the world will be a better place.

The ultimate betrayal of our dreams and ideals will come when we give up on our attempts to seek their fulfillment in the here and now, even at the risk of not only failing to achieve them, but of failing to continue to live up to them. For we have to risk getting it wrong, in order to have a chance at getting it right. There are no guarantees in life, and there is no guidance, there is only trial and error, where sheer stubbornness and perseverance often play a far more important role than ingenuity.

If our common humanity is not enough reason for us to work and prosper together and be at peace with each other, nothing ever can be.

Those who are not speaking out for fear that their words can be used against them should bear in mind that their silence has been used against them even more.

The dialogue that we all sorely need is not one that seeks to end all difference, but one that seeks to resolve disputes by helping to introduce suitable arrangements that can allow the sparring sides to coexist peacefully and to express their differences freely, with full respect to each other’s basic rights and privacy.

Regardless of what they say and regardless of what they do, and no matter how hard they deny or fret, and how often they condemn and kill, the facts remain that each time has its own prophets and that we are the prophets of the modern age.

If you don’t want to believe, I can never convince you. But if you do want to believe, I don’t really have to convince you. But the only way I can actually dialogue with you, and you with me, is if both of us want to know even at the risk of our cherished beliefs and convictions.

We have to be far more realistic and far more idealistic and far more creative and far more patient than all. Yes, we have to find ways to balance all these contradictions inside of us if we want to rise up as living peoples again capable of contributing to the march of human civilization and progress.