"Sharing the joyful news of our human possibilities
through word and action
is perhaps the most important aspect
of the Great Work of our time."

— David Korten
 

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson
 

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Margaret Mead
 

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Margaret Mead
 

"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."

Oliver Wendell Holmes
 

"Always do what's right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

Mark Twain
 

"The starting point for a better world is the belief that it is possible."

Norman Cousins
 

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

Marcel Proust
 

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

Alan Kay
 

"Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day."

E.B. White
 

"The time is always right to do what is right."

Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

"It is not the answers that show us the way, but the questions."

Rainer Maria Rilke, Czech poet
 

"Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people."

Jawaharlal Nehru
 

"We thrive and survive on planet earth as a single human family. And one of our main responsibilities is to leave to successor generations a sustainable future."

UN Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan
 

"We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality."

Vaclav Havel
 

"There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew."

Marshall McCluhan
 

"Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us and the whole world will live as one."

John Lennon -- Imagine
 

"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."

Ralph Waldo Emerson
 

"There never was a good war, or a bad peace."

Benjamin Franklin
 

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children."

Former U. S. President Jimmy Carter -- Nobel Peace Prize, 2002
 

“We call them Cultural Creatives because, innovation by innovation, they are shaping a new kind of American culture for the twenty-first century.”

Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.,
The Cultural Creatives
 

“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they see it can be done -- then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
 

“Whatever you love opens its secrets to you.”

George Washington Carver
 

“The World needs an enormous number of new Innovators, Change Agents, and Transformers, all dedicated to turning Development in the direction of sustainability. People like you.”

-- Alan Atkisson, Believing Cassandra: an optimist looks at a pessimist’s world
 

“All things are possible once enough human beings realize that everything is at stake.”

-- Norman Cousins
 

“ ..who can define a good practice? We believe it is the person who uses the practice next, who determines whether it makes a difference to what they are doing.”

-- Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell, Learning to Fly: Practical Lessons from one of the World’s Leading Knowledge Companies
 

“Dialogue is properly a gift relationship as well. When we speak together in a dialogue, we are speaking is a way that seeks to contribute one to the other.”

-- William Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

-- The Queen: Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

"Sustainable development" is a "compelling moral and humanitarian issue".

-- Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State

A vision without a plan is just a dream. A plan without a vision is just drudgery. But a vision with a plan can change the world.

-- Proverb

"We shape our buildings, then our buildings shape us."

-- Winston Churchill

"New Community Design (NCD) principles can be used to create vibrant neighborhoods of housing, parks, and schools within walking distance of shops, civic services, jobs, and transit."

-- New Community Design to the Rescue, National Governors Association Center for Best Practices

"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."

-- Adlai Stevenson

"Dialogue seems to be one of the ways in which it is possible to welcome the diversity of voices that people bring to the table -- and move to a new level of collective insight."

-- William Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together

"The future is literally in our hands to mold as we like. But we cannot wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is now."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The earth and the human community are bound in a single journey."

-- Thomas Berry

"To survive in the world we have transformed, we must learn to think in a new way. As never before, the future of each depends on the good of all."

-- Nobel Statement, December 2001

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."

-- Antoine de Saint Exupery

"We can find common ground only by moving to higher ground."

-- Jim Wallis, The Soul of Politics

"To find your own way is to follow your bliss."

-- Joseph Campbell

"Ahead is the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community and ethics such as the world has never known -- and a harmony with nature, with one another and with the divine intelligence such as the world has ever dreamed."

Dee Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus of Visa International
-- Chaordic Commons

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

Leo Tolstoy

Dialogue seems to be one of the ways in which it is possible to welcome the diversity of voices that people bring to the table -- and move to a new level of collective insight.

William Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together

There are no such things as great deeds -- only small ones done with great heart.

Mother Theresa

We shape our buildings, then our buildings shape us.

Winston Churchill

May the stars light your way and may you find the interior road. Forward!

traditional Irish farewell

Everything in life matters and ultimately has a place, an impact, and a meaning.

Laurens van der Post
A Far-Off Place

You see things and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were and I say 'Why not?'

George Bernard Shaw

There are few misfortunes in this world you cannot turn into personal triumphs if you have an iron will and necessary skill.

Nelson Mandela

Our growing social-capital deficit threatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health and happiness.

Robert Putnam, Interview,
Chronicle of Philanthropy, 10/00,
author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Within the neighborhoods, the towns, the local communities of America are the stirrings of a new movement of citizens acting together to solve community problems.

A Nation of Spectators
The National Commission on Civic Renewal

Traveler, there is no path. Paths are made by walking.

Antonio Machado
Spanish Poet

The State of Oregon shall develop and promote policies and programs that will assist Oregon to meet a goal of sustainability within one generation - by 2025.

Governor John A. Kitzhaber, M.D.
Oregon

We understand the triple bottom lines of sustainability must all be addressed for us to be successful.

William Clay Ford, Chairman, Ford Motor Company
"The Road to Sustainability" - CERES conference - April 2000

The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realize that they cannot be viewed in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.

Fritjof Capra
The Web of Life

The Clean River Plan is an action plan that outlines specific things we can do to finally make our environment healthy...We will have a cleaner Willamette, healthier tributaries and local watersheds, improved fish habitat and a more livable, sustainable community.

Dan Saltzman
Environmental Services
Portland's Clean River Plan
http://www.enviro.ci.portland.or.us

'Dialogue'... is a conversation with a center, not sides. It is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before. It lifts us out of polarization and into a greater common sense, and is thereby a means for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups of people.

Dialogue fulfills deeper, more widespread needs than simply 'getting to yes'. The aim of a negotiation is to reach agreement among parties who differ. The intention of dialogue is to reach new understanding and, in doing so, to form a totally new basis from which to think and act. In dialogue, one not only solves problems, one dissolves them. We do not merely try to reach agreement, we try to create a context from which many new agreements might come. And we seek to uncover a base of shared meaning that can greatly help coordinate and align our actions with our values.

William Isaacs
Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together

People need trees. They need to see leaves from their windows, to sit in green spaces, and to play in the shade. Trees draw people out from behind walls of brick and glass, and in coming together, neighbors forge relationships, nurture children, and build a sense of community.

Tina ProwThe Power of Trees

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can.

John Wesley

... when Dialogue is done skillfully, the results can be extraordinary: long-standing stereotypes dissolved, mistrust overcome, mutual understanding achieved, visions shaped and grounded in shared purpose, people aligned on objectives and strategies, new common ground discovered, new perspective and insights gained, new levels of creativity stimulated, and bonds of community strengthened.

Daniel Yankelovich, The Magic of Dialogue

We do make a difference -- one way or the other. We are responsible for the impact of our lives. Whatever we do with whatever we have, we leave behind us a legacy for those who follow.

Stephen Covey