"A premise for our actions: we work to improve society rather than simply
to aid the victims of society's misfunctioning."
- Dr. Loretta J. Williams
"Be the change you want to see."
- Gandhi
"Every religious tradition on which we draw has
a reverence for life. We are a part of an intricate web of life. Every tradition
on which we draw teaches that the ultimate expression of our spirituality
is our action. Deep spirituality leads to action in the world. A deep reverence
for life, love of nature's complex beauty and sense of intimate connection
with the cosmos leads inevitably to a commitment to work for environmental
and social justice."
- Peter Morales
"In the long run, you can never accomplish a
worthy end with an unworthy means."
- Stephen Covey
"The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church to
substitute character for creed, and to say that a man should be judged
by his spirit; by the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity;
by the spring of his hope; that he should be judged by what he does;
by the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may
believe."
- Robert Ingersoll (Toast at Unitarian Club Dinner, New
York, January 15, 1892.)
"Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just
is sustainable and what is unjust is not."
- Matthew Fox
“That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but
that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics…All
ethics…rest upon a single premise: the individual is a member
of a community of individual parts…The first rule of ecology is:
keep all the parts.”
–Aldo Leopold
“We travel together, passengers in a little spaceship,…preserved
from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we
give our fragile craft.”
–Adlai Stevenson, Statesman and Unitarian layperson.
“Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living
environment.”
- Nobel Peace Prize Foundation
“The Four Laws of Ecology: (1) Everything is connected to everything
else; (2) Everything must go somewhere; (3) Nature knows best; and (4) There
is no such thing as a free lunch.”
- Barry Commoner
“How do we care for all the children of all the species for all time?”
- William McDonough
"To work in the world lovingly means that we
are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are
against."
- Christina Baldwin
"Perhaps the greatest justice issue of all is intergenerational
theft. The Eighth Commandment says "Thou shall not steal," but
every day we live unsustainably we steal from our children and their
children."
- Rev. Fred Small, First Church Unitarian, Littleton, Massachusetts
"The Great Work — the work of ensuring a just, healthy,
beautiful, and sustainably life-giving world for future generations of
all species."
- Thomas Berry
"Justice, properly understood, is systemic, aiming at the underlying
causes of social problems, not at their symptoms. Treating symptoms alone
might well be a soporific to cover fundamental injustice; it is like
putting Band Aids on a cancer. Thus, food kitchens, however laudable,
merely feed the victims of a fundamentally unjust social order instead
of rooting out causes of hunger. A systemic approach challenges the underlying
premises and workings of economies that produce 'poverty in the midst
of plenty.' A systemic approach deals with policy issues, taxation, government
welfare programs, and income distribution."
- Rev. Richard S. Gilbert, First Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York
“We believe that serving as stewards of the earth is a moral
duty, and we will continue to do everything in our power to protect the
environment.”
- Rev. Bill Sinkford, President of Unitarian Universalist Association
"As stewards of God's creation, we are called to confront and
combat global warming, which endangers the poorest and most vulnerable
of the earth's peoples, future human generations worldwide, and countless
other species."
- Global WarmingSolution.org
"Global warming is a justice issue. It’s a justice
issue because global warming is theft – theft from our own children
and grand children, of their right to a livable future. It’s
a justice issue, because its victims are, and will be, disproportionately
poor and of color, those least able to contend with or to flee, the storms,
droughts, famines, and rising tides of global warming."
- Rev. Fred Small, First Church Unitarian, Littleton, MA