Quotations

So, over on LiveJournal, where I keep my more social and personal blog, there's a meme (for want of a better term) going around. The idea is that you go to this website and keep looking until you find five quotations that speak to you. Then you post them.
These are my five (with commentary, 'cause that's how I roll):

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Ah, good old Dr. King. Generally, my philosophy is that the world would be better with more kissing and less killing. Of course, that's not the kind of love Dr. King is talking about. He's talking about the kind of love that Paul is talking about in Corinthians (which people always read at weddings, even though it's completely out of context and not at all what Paul was talking about.)¹ This is the love that saves the world. It's what makes Buffy jump off a tower and Lily Potter jump in front of her son. It's Bill and Ted telling us to "be excellent to each other" and Jesus telling us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And what is the basis for that love? The knowledge that each and every one of us is a mortal human being, and we're all in it together.

The people's good is the highest law.
-Cicero
Me being me, I don't cotton to self-centered philosophies. Looking out for number one, to me, is looking out for homo sapiens sapiens as a whole. To quote Spock- the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.² If the government exists by the people, of the people, and for the people, than the role of government is to benefit the people. Of course, where we run into trouble is when we can't agree on what offers the most benefit.

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.
-Francois de Fenelon
Amen.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
This is one of the most important lessons my parents ever taught me. It always seems to me to be one of the true marks of character and leadership- to be willing to do yourself that which you proclaim to be the right thing for others to do. If it's right, shouldn't you do it too?

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
-Iris Murdoch
Love, ultimately (and again, I'm talking about more than just romantic love), is the realization that you are not the most important thing God ever created. Your feelings, wants, desires are not the only feelings, wants or desires that exist, and learning to love successfully is learning how to balance yours with those of the people you love.

1. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NRSV) In the King James and other versions, the word translated here as "love" is translated "charity".i>
2. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan