Among our Potawatomi people, women are the Keepers of Water. We carry the sacred water to ceremonies and act on its behalf. “Women have a natural bond with water, because we are both life bearers,” my sister said. “We carry our babies in internal ponds and they come forth into the world on a wave of water. It is our responsibility to safeguard the water for all our relations.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer (“Braiding Sweetgrass”)“The whole story of creation, incarnation, and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ’s body tells us that God desires us.”
— Rowan Williams“You can judge a nation’s moral progress by how it
treats its animals.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. … I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. … Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.”
— Frederick Douglass (19th century)“The greatest block in the way of woman’s emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood. … I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a
horse.”
— Elizabeth Cady Stanton (19th century)“As the earth spins through space, a view from above the North Pole would encompass most the wealth of the world — most of its food, productive machines, doctors, engineers and teachers. A view from the opposite pole would encompass most of the world’s poor.”
— Barry Commoner“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
— Ansel Adams“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life.”
— Rachel Carson