Daniel Lubetzky

Avarice is different.  It means setting your heart on money, a thing that no wise man ever did.  It is a kind of deadly poison, which ruins a man’s health and weakens his moral fiber.  It knows no bounds and can never be satisfied.  He that has not, wants; and he that has, wants more.

- Sallust, In The Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Cataline, discussing how the Roman Empire was overtaken as ‘the disease [of

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Look at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

- Carl Sagan, commenting on a picture of planet Earth taken 4 billion miles away by NASA, showing a fragile speck of blue adrift in an unimaginably vast sea of space. See a film with Carl Sagan’s commencement address at the Pangea Day website.

The Opposite of Faith is not Heresy.
But Indifference.

- Elie Wiesel,
quoted at the end of Beyond the Gates

Like Hotel Rwanda, Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) peers into the genocide in Rwanda, here from the eyes of an older priest and a young teacher who witness the slaughter by Hutu militia wielding machetes on Tutsi refugees as UN peace-monitors stand by.  Less than 15 years ago this true story took place.  After witnessing the inhuman carnage from close, helpless to save a mother and her baby, Joe Connor, the idealistic English teacher, asks Christopher, the exhausted Catholic priest:

Joe: How much pain can a human being take, do you think?
If you feel enough pain, does everything just shut down…
before you die?

Christopher: I don’t know, Joe.

Joe: ’cause you’d think that, wouldn’t you? You’d think there’d be some, something in the design, some shut-off valve, if you feel enough pain?

Christopher: I hope so.

Joe: Yeah, God knows.  [chuckles] Maybe we should ask him…  If he’s still around.

Christopher: I think it’s time we packed our bags.

The UN then begins a withdrawal, evacuating foreigners, but abandoning the compound, and the refugees.  What could Joe do? What can the priest do?

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Benjamin Franklin was the first recorded person to call himself "an extreme moderate."

He was thus a true predecessor to the OneVoice Movement, in highlighting the imperative of action and determination from mainstream citizenry.

Peter Samuelson is one of those rare living angels who rove the earth, who never forget to treat every human being with respect, who always try to help make others better beings and better off, and daily, constantly innovating to fight suffering.  He inspired a lot of great quotes worthy of sharing.

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My friend Andy Komaroff shared this beautiful poem tonight at the rehearsal dinner for my wedding:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,

If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our courage, nor our wisdom, nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

- Robert Kennedy, March 18, 1968

"I discovered that a person cannot live a full life under the shadow of bitterness."

- Benjamin Zander’s father.  As reported by Benjamin at a closing session in Davos, his father was in Auschwitz and then interned in a refugee camp in England, followed by many setbacks, yet always had a positive disposition.

Two years ago, Conductor Benjamin Zander gave a talk to our youth leaders.  He explained how the ‘downward spiral’ mentality must be replaced by ‘radiant possibilities.’  He encourages people, after making mistakes, to think ‘how fascinating,’ learn the lesson, make the best of it and see the silver lining and move on.

Benjamin shared how, shortly after 9/11, New Yorkers attended a concert in Carnegie Hall with the Boston Philarmonic. Every New Yorker attended for free, including 150 firemen and 100 police officers, and each ticket was purchased by an anonymous person from Boston in solidarity.

He also related the story of a woman who, as a child during World War II, chastized her younger brother, "Why did you forget your shoes?" It turned out these were the last words she would ever tell her brother, who was killed that afternoon.  From then on, she committed she’d only say things to people that could be the last things you say to them.

“Blessed are those who are peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

- Jesus is said to have delivered this statement as part of his Sermon on the Mount, but yesterday this statement was brought to life when President George W. Bush received this inscription during his visit to the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have walked on water)