¶ True Heroes

• General Executive Board Report and Proceedings [of The] Biennial Convention, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1914

  "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you"

• Gandhi - Gandhi

  "There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

  "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

  "God has no religion"

  "We must respect other religions, even as we respect our own. Mere tolerance thereof is not enough."

  (When asked if he was a Hindu) "Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew."

  On Showing up to meet His Majesty King Edward VII of England in just a loincloth, a reporter wondered aloud if this was disrespectful to the king. Gandhi replied simply, "The King was wearing enough for the both of us."

• Nelson Mandela

  "I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands."

  "A traveller through our country would stop at a village, and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but Ubuntu has various aspects.

• Mother Teresa of Calcutta - Mother Teresa

  "Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."

  "When I was crossing into Gaza, I was asked at the checkpost whether I was carrying any weapons. I replied: Oh yes, my prayer books."

• Martin Luther King, Jr. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin Luther King, Jr.

  "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."

  The "I have a dream..." speech: watch?v=PAKnMLPus1M

• Albert Einstein

  "I only know one race: the human one."

  "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

  "Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time."

• Socrates - Socrates

  "I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world." (pretty modern mindset, eh?)

  "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance."

  "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."

  Often when looking at a mass of things for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I have no need of!"