Essays, thoughts, poems, prayers and quotes:
The sage of old cultivated himself before he attempted to help others. If you yourself are not cultivated, what help could you possibly be for others? Do you know how virtue is lost and how mere knowledge arises? True…
Our lives as well as our minds are limited. To try and understand that which is unlimited is foolish and dangerous. To do this and consider it knowledge is even more foolish and dangerous. Chuang Tzu from the Tao…
One of the simplest ways of understanding what is wrong with the current welfare system and why current efforts to reform it will continue to fail is to consider this question:Do we want to ensure that nobody has to…
If I were constructing a Utopia, which God forbid, I should describe a higher civilisation in which every human being had a hundred names; in which each had a particular name known only to a particular friend; in which…
We do not quite forgive the giver. The hands that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. Ralph Waldo Emerson on GiftsThe problem of giving is profound and double-edged. If we are the recipient of a gift there…
Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it…
The hardest strokes of heaven fall in history upon those who imagine that they can control things in a sovereign manner, as though they were kings of the earth, playing Providence not only for themselves but for the…
At the same time there existed in the sphere of the world a land that was called the country of wealth after the nature of its inhabitants. They saw in money alone the goal of their life and would recognise no other profit…
It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it, that it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are, and that we may even trust it to contain…
The lucky man's great good fortuneRuins his children.This was old wisdom.Is it true?Surely the father who breaks heaven's lawRuins his children.The father who denies heaven's rightBlinds his children.The…
The use of the term 'disabled' is complex and disputed.In the UK the term 'disabled people' is preferred to 'people with disabilities'. Disabled people can wear it with pride. It is used as a badge of identity and, if…
Much of society is organised on the principle that we should leave decisions in the hands of those who are most competent to make them. But we often confuse competence with cleverness. However clever you are there are…
You are a citizen when you are defined by your contribution, by what you create in the company of others, not by what you consume…We need to find ways for all of us to act together as citizens on the truth in Winston…
I believe what Native Americans believe: that every person born to this earth is born with gifts. It's totally impossible to be born without them. No one's birth was a mistake. We all come here with something to give.…
Citizenship is related three ideals of democracy that are at the core of person-centred work. First, all people are created equal, which means that everyone is equally entitled to reach for their higher purpose.…
In proceeding from this first comprehensive survey of social insurance to the next task—of making recommendations—three guiding principles may be laid down at the outset.1. The first principle is…
This disposition to admire, and to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean conditions... is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our…
It's when we face for a momentthe worst our kind can do, and shudder to knowthe taint in our own selves, that awecracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:not to a flower, not to a dolphin,to no innocent formbut to…
...the Helots were tied to the lands as serfs of the Spartan community, paying for their right to live by a contribution of half the product of their labours on the soil. E B Castle from Ancient Education and…
Aristotle feared that democracy might become the rule of the mob, the demos. He saw their short-sighted, wilfulness as a threat to good order. Of course Aristotle did not know how big and powerful a state could…
John O'Brien shared the following Mohawk prayer of thanksgiving.OHEN:TON KARIWENTEHKWENWe offer our greetings to all the people.We offer our greetings to the Earth, our Mother.We offer our greetings to the…
The just society treats the stranger as a citizen - but never forgets what citizenship means.
Centralisation imparts without difficulty an admirable regularity to the routine of business... in short it excels in prevention, but not in action. Its forces desert it when society is to be profoundly moved, or…
The Paideia Proposal was an educational reform plan proposed by Mortimer Adler in the USA. The description of the plan below is drawn from the article Reconstituting the Schools, included in the 1988 edition of his…