February is a Proud Month

February can be trying month with storms and floods, but we have much to celebrate as well. As a sophomore at Clover Park High School I used homeroom to write down lines of poetry and words of wisdom from various sources that captured ideals and ideas from around the world. I was an avid reader. All these years later I still am. Perhaps, a bit more open–minded. I would say my absolutes have been modified by real life. On my Facebook page I usually intersperse comments with articles and other posts — facebook.com/publicdoman

I have selected a few quotes to share. I think they are worthwhile to consider. Sometimes the quotations dance around the noted celebration, but isn’t that just like life?

February – Black History Month

“You’ve got to learn to leave the table when love’s no longer being served.” — Nina Simone
“Self-esteem means knowing you are the dream.” — Oprah Winfrey
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” — Maya Angelou
“I was built this way for a reason, so I’m going to use it.” — Simone Biles
“You are your best thing.” — Toni Morrison

February 1 – National Freedom Day

“The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at.” — Jesse Owens
“We are asking people to understand that slavery still exists today; in fact, according to a recent New York Times article, if you count the number of women and children in bonded labor, domestic slavery or sexual slavery today, there are more slaves in the world than at any other time in history.” — Charlotte Bunch
“The best protection any woman can have… is courage.” — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

February 14 – Valentine’s Day

“I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you.” — Cassandra Clare
“I’m gonna fight for you, until your heart stops beating.” — Stephenie Meyer
“To the world you may be one person but to one person you may be the world.” — Bill Wilson
“The heart can think of no devotion, Greater than being shore to the ocean, Holding the curve of one position, Counting an endless repetition.” — Robert Frost
“There is nothing on earth more beautiful to me than your smile…no sound sweeter than your laughter…no pleasure greater than holding you in my arms. I realized today that I could never live without you, stubborn little hellion that you are. In this life and the next, you’re my only hope of happiness. Tell me,… dearest love…how can you have reached so far inside my heart?” — Lisa Kleypas

February 14 – League of Women Voters — 100th Anniversary Celebration

“If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.” — Abigail Adams
“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. … Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
The connection between women’s human rights, gender equality, socioeconomic development and peace is increasingly apparent. — Mahnaz Afkhami
Even though they make up half the population, women and girls have endured discrimination in most societies for thousands of years. In the past, women were treated as property of their husbands or fathers — they couldn’t own land, they couldn’t vote or go to school, and were subject to beatings and abuse and could do nothing about it. Over the last hundred years, much progress has been made to gain equal rights for women around the world, but many still live without the rights to which all people are entitled. — Robert Alan Silverstein

February 15 – Susan B. Anthony Day

“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation.” — Susan B. Anthony
“I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black; it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self–love and self–respect.” — June Jordan
Women will not simply be mainstreamed into the polluted stream. Women are changing the stream, making it clean and green and safe for all — every gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, age, and ability. — Bella Abzug
“As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that. It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.” — Anne Lamott
“Why must the woman apologize for not having a baby just because she happened to get pregnant? It’s as if we think motherhood is the default setting for a woman’s life from first period to menopause, and she needs a note from God not to say yes to every zygote that knocks on her door.” — Katha Pollitt

February 17 – President’s Day

“We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” — John Quincy Adams
“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” — Ronald Reagan
“I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing it until the end. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” — Abraham Lincoln
“You don’t lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

February 20 – World Day of Social Justice

“One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.” — Michelle Obama
“I want to live in a world where people become famous because of their work for peace and justice and care. I want the famous to be inspiring; their lives an example of what every human being has it in them to do act from love! ” — Patch Adams
“If people have moral courage to stand up to the smallest injustice–their own and other’s–it’s kind of like practice for when the big ones come around.” — Colleen Kelly
“There can be no peace without justice and respect for human rights.” — Irene Khan
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King Jr

I hope you found inspirations to warm your heart. Please, share this article with friends and include your own favorite quotations as a gift to others.