“It really boiled down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English- speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is strutted; this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”

                                                                                                -Martin Luther King, Jr., from

                                                                                    “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” 1961 

“If we are to reach real peace in this world…, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have to struggle; we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which consciously or unconsciously the whole world is hungering.”   

                                                                                    -Mahatma Gandhi, November 19, 1931

• To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
• To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
• To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
• To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
• To think only of the best, to work only for the best and expect only the best.
• To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
• To forget the mistake of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
• To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
• To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
• To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Optimist International