bridges

Bridges take people across rivers. Leaders take people across ignorance. With a leader, the destination of a journey is sure.

Action is the bridge between thought and reality.

A good leader lays seeds to grow trees of peace. A bad leader lays down bricks to build walls of ignorance. Always choose the peacemaker, not the divider. The one who unites and strengthens a country, not divides and cripples it. A leader that will build bridges, not walls.

We elected a man who knows how to build walls when we needed someone who knows how to build bridges.

In all my close friendships, words are the bricks I use to build bridges. To know someone I need to hear her, and to feel known, I need to be heard by her. The process of knowing and loving another person happens for me through conversation. I reveal something to help my friend understand me, she responds in a way that assures me she values my revelation, and then she adds something to help me understand her. This back-and-forth is repeated again and again as we go deeper into each other's hearts, minds, pasts, and dreams. Eventually, a friendship is built - a solid, sheltering structure that exists in the space between us - a space outside of ourselves that we can climb deep into. There is her, there is me, and then there is our friendship - this bridge we've built together.

If I could remove one thing from the world and replace it with something else, I would erase politics and put art in its place. That way, art teachers would rule the world. And since art is the most supreme form of love, beautiful colors and imagery would weave bridges for peace wherever there are walls. Artists, who are naturally heart-driven, would decorate the world with their love, and in that love _ poverty, hunger, lines of division, and wars would vanish from the earth forever. Children of the earth would then be free to play, imagine, create, build and grow without bloodshed, terror and fear.

If a person cannot swim across the river, he must take the bridge. He is not afraid of the water or worried that he may drown. But he takes the bridge out of necessity. It is a fact. To fear or worry over necessities (over facts), stills the mind. The stagnant mind only focuses and refocuses on a single point, without peripheral vision__t ponders danger, but it does not prepare for it. The brave man is not bound immobile with caution or lost scouting the fog of hazard calculating insurmountable variables. His sight and sense is not hindered and he may confront danger upon its arrival. To be brave is not to be careless or headstrong, but to act without expectation.

Pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance.

When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.

I used to take my car and go down to the South Island for five or six days and climb glaciers and jump out of planes and jump off bridges and go white water rafting - a bit of thrill-seeking.

Through love, tribes have been intermixing colors to reveal a new rainbow world. And as more time passes, this racial and cultural blending will make it harder for humans to side with one race, nation or religion over another.

And if the imam and the Muslim leadership in that community is so intent on building bridges, then they should voluntarily move the mosque away from ground zero and move it whether it's uptown or somewhere else, but move it away from that area, the same as the pope directed the Carmelite nuns to move a convent away from Auschwitz.

Education is all a matter of building bridges.

If we expect to continue our leadership in the global economy, we must invest in a long-term transportation plan -f or both highways and transit programs. Too many of our roads, bridges, and railways have fallen into disrepair.

Knowledge of other people's beliefs and ways of thinking must be used to build bridges, not to create conflicts.

For me, Batman is the one that can most clearly be taken seriously. He's not from another planet, or filled with radioactive gunk. I mean, Superman is essentially a god, but Batman is more like Hercules: he's a human being, very flawed, and bridges the divide.

Some amazing records have this power to leave you with inspiration; you're left with the urge to write something. And some records are totally overwhelming, because they are so good, they burn the bridges behind them.