Saint-Exupéry

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.
Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded.

A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says “I was beaten,” he does not say “My men were beaten”.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.

Loving is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.

‘Men have forgotten this truth,’ said the fox. ‘But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.’
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.

Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men.

The notion of looking on at life has always been hateful to me. What am I if I am not a participant? In order to be, I must participate.

For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.

The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry(29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944) was a French writer and aviator. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his books about aviation adventures, including Night Flight and Wind, Sand and Stars.

(This original posting is taken from Paulo Coelho Blog)

Muhammad Yunus

Global Social Summit, November 5, 2010

I’m encouraging young people to become social business entrepreneurs and contribute to the world, rather than just making money. Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun.

Poor people are a like bonsai tree, a little tree. You pick the seed of the tallest tree in the forest and take the best seed out of it, and plant it in a flower pot. You get a tiny little tree, we call it a bonsai. Nothing wrong with the seed, you’ve got the best seed possible. Nothing wrong with the tree, because you actually picked the tallest tree in the forest. But actually it grows this far… why? Because we put them in the flower pot. The base. Society is the base. And society is so stingy it doesn’t give the poor ppl the space to grow.
So i say, change the base! If you change the base, anybody will be as tall as anybody else! My belief is poverty is not caused by poor ppl. Poverty is caused by the system. Poverty is caused by the policies that we pursue.

People can change their own lives, provided they have the right kind of institutional support. They’re not asking for charity, charity is no solution to poverty.

We have created a society that does not allow opportunities for people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities.

I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.
I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over.
They explained to me that the bank cannot lend money to poor people because these people are not creditworthy.

Poverty is unnecessary.

Muhammad Yunus (1940 – ) created the microcredit, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006

(This original posting taken from Paulo Coelho Blog)