Some  useful quotations for keeping mind and soul buoyant (or at least not gagging on swallowed water while going down for the third time…)

If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.

~Marx, Reflections of a Young Man, 1835

The core of the anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So the burden of proof is always on those who claim that some authoritarian hierarchic relation is legitimate. If they can’t prove it, then it should be dismantled.

~Noam Chomsky, On Anarchism. 2005

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called ‘the People’s Stick.’

~ Mikhail Bakunin

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

~Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring their government to its true principles. It is true, that in the meantime, we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war, and long oppressions of enormous public debt. … If the game runs sometimes against…we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost. For this is a game where principles are the stake.

~Thomas Jefferson,  Letter to John  Taylor,  1798

From quiet homes and first beginnings, out to the undiscovered ends, there’s nothing worth the wear of winning but laughter and the love of friends.

~Hilaire Belloc, Dedicatory Ode, 1910

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together in a single garment of destiny.

~Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.

~Martin Luther King, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1964

More to come…