The World

Celebrate your joy with us!

Join if in the whole wide world there’s

Just one soul to call your own! …

Be embracéd, all you millions,

Share this kiss with all the world!

Friedrich Schiller

, ‘Ode to Joy’

And you should have been cautious, better educated by the past,

The ancient bamboo books of history

Were there for you to study.

But you didn’t see …

Times change, power passes;

It is the pity of the world.

Li Qingzhao

Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.

Vasily Grossman

Rulers, statesmen and nations are often advised to learn the lesson of historical experience. But what experience and history teach is that nations and governments have never learned anything from history.

Hegel

I gazed in every direction and all appeared wonderfully beautiful. There were stars which we never see from earth … all larger than we have ever imagined. The starry spheres were much greater than the earth; indeed the earth seemed so small I was scornful of our empire … If only you look on high and contemplate this eternal home and resting place you will no longer bother with the gossip of the common herd or put your trust in human reward … for what men say dies with them and is blotted out with the forgetfulness of posterity.

Cicero

The wine is heady, make haste!

And time is scarce, take all of it you can.

Who knows if next year’s spring,

So sweet, will find you dust and ash or living man.

Saadi

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

Anne Frank