Peerless Power

“Remember that everyone’s life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better—this is all life is.”
—Booker T. Washington

Instant Gratification

“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” —Anne Frank

Definition of Success

“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

No Time to Help

“If you’re too busy to help someone, you’re too busy.”

—Les Brown

“Is that a magnum in your holster…

…or are you just happy to be in Sonoma Valley?” will be the magic question at the Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction Weekend (August 31- september 2). Funds raised will go to eleven Sonoma Valley Charities.

For ticket & event info, check out sonomavalleywine.com.

Creative Lighting

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the creative light of altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s persistent and most urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?'”
—Dr. Martin Luther King

Brooke Astor Dies at 105.

“If I go up to Harlem or down to Sixth Street, and I’m not dressed up or I’m not wearing my jewelry, then the people feel I’m talking down to them. People expect to see Mrs. Astor, not some dowdy old lady, and I don’t intend to disappoint them.” —Brooke Astor, who was named a “living landmark” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy in 1997.

Brooke Astor (March 30, 1902 – August 13, 2007)

Long before Prozac

“In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.”
—Dorothea Dix (1802 – 1887), who became a fervent lobbyist for the mentally ill after teaching Sunday school in an East Cambridge jail where the mentally ill inmates were lumped together in an unsanitary, odiferous room without heat or furniture. When Dix asked jail officials why the conditions were so harsh, they told her that “the insane do not feel heat or cold.”

More on Dix & the first American mental asylums at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Dix

Where to Care in NYC

Want to help out but don’t know where to start? Check out New York Cares for year-round volunteer opportunities. Citywide service days (parks, gardens, public spaces). Holiday gift & coat drives. Employee & youth volunteer programs. Disaster preparedness efforts.

Give an hour. Give a day. Give whenever you’re able.

Find out how & where you’re needed at www.nycares.org.

HuMannity

“To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.”
—Horace Mann

“Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.”
—Horace Mann

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity ”
—Horace Mann