30 quotes about Universal Brother and Sisterhood

This notion of universal brother and sisterhood is an idea that has a rich history and has inspired  many great thinkers from different walks of life, musicians, poets, philosophers, athletes, politicians, novelists, playwrights, actors, social activists and spiritual leaders. It's a notion that may sometimes wane in popularity, but never really grows old, and thus it can be helpful to look at a sample of eloquent reflections on the subject by some distinguished figures of history, which can be even more relevant, timely, and even necessary, in more turbulent times.

 

1- I know that I need a brother who shares this tender, taunting heritage. True friendship. I desire a sister who is not in denial of our mutual past. Together we may be able to plan a less painful future. Separate, we can only anticipate further ruptures and grotesque loneliness.
Maya Angelou, Even the Stars Look Lonesome, 1997, p. 112 

 

Maya Angelou

2- There is the sky, which is all men's together. 

Euripides, Helen, 905

 

3- Christians are my brothers, Hindus are my brothers, all of them are my brothers. We just think different and believe different.

Muhammad Ali, O, The Oprah Magazine, June 2001

 

4- We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.  

Henry Melvill, "Partaking in Other Men's Sins", Melvill’s Golden Lectures for 1855, 1856

Kahlil Gibran

5- I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in a church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of the one supreme being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all. 

Kahlil Gibran, A Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran, 1974, p. 102

 

7-Of a truth, men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.

Thomas Carlyle,

Goethe's Works.

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1866895-thomas-carlyle-a-mystic-bond-of-brotherhood-makes-all-men-one/

Goethe's Works.

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1866895-thomas-carlyle-a-mystic-bond-of-brotherhood-makes-all-men-one/

Goethe's Works.

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1866895-thomas-carlyle-a-mystic-bond-of-brotherhood-makes-all-men-one/

Goethe's Works, 1832, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished, Vol. 2

 

8- The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another. 

Thomas Merton, final address, conference on East-West monastic dialogue, 10 December 1968, Religious Education, Vol. 73 (1978), p. 292

 

9-God, what a world, if men in street and mart,

Felt that same kinship of the human heart,
Which makes them, in the face of fire and flood,
Rise to the meaning of True Brotherhood.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Brotherhood, Picked Poems, 1912

 

10- Let us acknowledge our weaknesses as a prelude to increasingly our strength. Let us use the admission of weakness not to excuse our own self-indulgence, but to help us understand and forgive others, for this is the secret of brotherhood, its pattern and its aim – to create a world of men, each of whom can feel secure in the conviction that all other men are his brothers – not his enemies.

Oscar Hammerstein II, “4 Leaders Honored at Hub Dinner”, Boston Post, 9 May, 1952

 

11- Have Love. Not love alone for one, but man as man they brother call; 

and scatter like the circling sun thy charities on all. 

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller,  Hope, Faith, and Love, "The Words of Strength"(about 1786) , The Common School Journal Vol. IX (1847) ed. Horace Mann, p. 386 

 

12- It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country.

Malcolm X,  New York City Speech, February 19, 1965 

 

Louisa May Alcott

13- Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and can be of service to him. And blessed is he who loves his brother as well when he is afar off as when he is by his side, and who would say nothing behind his back he might not, in love, say before his face. 

St. Francis of Assisi, Admonitions, 25. Of True Love

 

14- The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all.

Charlie Chaplin, The Barber's Speech, The Great Dictator, 1940

 
15- The child has talent, loves music, and needs help. I can't give her money, but I can teach her; so I do, and she is the most promising pupil I have. Help one another, is part of the religion of our sisterhood.    

Louisa May Alcott, An Old-Fashioned Girl, 1870, Ch. 13

 

16- The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man. 

Pablo Casals, Joys and Sorrows : Reflections‎ by Pablo Casals as told to Albert E. Kahn, 1970, p. 299

 

17-

Helen Keller

What he now calls the law of justice

Will prepare for him the law of sacrifice

A law more holy, where the instinct of fraternity

Will devote man freely to humanity!

Alphonsede Lamartine, The Fall of the Angel, Œuvres complètes de Lamartine, Vol. 16, 1861, p. 251

 

18- Ancient prejudice of man against his brother man wavers and retreats before the radiance of a more generous sentiment, which will not sacrifice men to forms, or rob them of the comfort and strength they find in their own beliefs. The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.

Helen Keller, Optimism, 1903, pp. 46-47

 

19- In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good. 

Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791, Part 2.7 Chapter V 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

20- I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.

W. E. B. Du Bois,  Selections from His Writings, 2013, p.61 

 

21-To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to every one, brotherhood will not come to pass. 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1880, Ch.2

 

22- A smile or a tear has not nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man. 

Frederick Douglass, Composite Nation  speech in Boston, Speeches and Articles by Douglass, 1894 

 

Frederick Douglass,

23- Come, clear the way, then, clear the way: 

Blind creeds and kings have had their day. 

Break the dead branches from the path; 

Our hope is in the aftermath — 

Our hope is in heroic men, 

Star-led to build the world again. 

To this Event the ages ran: 

Make way for Brotherhood — make way for Man. 

Edwin Markham, Brotherhood,  The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems, 1899

 

24- In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

Booker T. Washington, An Autobiography, The Story of my Life and Work, 1901, p. 140 

 

25-Masonry only sees, in all those religionaries but people, brothers and sisters to which it opens its temple to free them from the prejudices of their countries, of the mistakes of the religions of their ancestors, by bringing them to love and help one another: because Masons deplore and flee error, but neither hate nor persecute it.

Jean-Marie Ragon, Cours philosophique et interprétatif des initiations anciennes et modernes, 1841, p. 37

 

26- If you wish them to be brothers, have them build a tower. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, 1948, p. 52

 

27- May all these people and all their generations walk together as relatives.

Black Elk, Sacred Pipe, 1953, 37

 

28- Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

John Lennon, Imagine, 1971 

 

29- Well, we have a whole new year ahead of us. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, a little more loving, and have a little more empathy, and maybe, next year at this time we'd like each other a little more.

Judy Garland, "The Judy Garland Show.", Sunday, January 5, 1964.

 

30- Only much later will they discover that they have entered into a new community, great but invisible, which encompasses all peoples and all religions. They will be poorer in all dogmatic, national goods, but richer in brotherhood with the souls of all epochs, nations, and languages. Hermann Hesse, Reflections, 1974

Astrology: The Year in Review 2022, Part 2

Since my reviews aren't really general overall reviews of world events, more an informal analysis of major transits, and because being from Canada, they tend to be more Canada-centric, here is an abridged post from Astrology with Andy, 2022 Astrological Progress Report, Oct 13 2022, to round things out, and cover more American events, since the majority of my readers are from the U.S.

Next year, Pluto dips its toes into Aquarius from March 24 to June 13 (and then again from January 20 to September 1 of 2024) before beginning an uninterrupted 20-year visit on November 29, 2024. When Pluto transits through Capricorn, things that seemed “too big to fail” end up failing. The powerful who seemed untouchable topple. Powerful enterprises are forever changed. When Pluto first entered Capricorn, Lehman Brothers — the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States at the time — declared bankruptcy (it was the largest bankruptcy filing in US history and marked the end of the firm’s 161-year history). In addition, the global investment bank Bear Stearns was bought by JP Morgan, and Bernie Madoff’s long-running house of cards toppled over in dramatic fashion. Global economic activity plummeted and the world entered a deep recession when Pluto entered Capricorn.

As Pluto made its way through Capricorn, more transformations took place (these can be positive and beneficial to society; there are no “good” or “bad” planets). There is no pivotal force like Pluto to usher in much-needed change. Consider this: of the 33 nations that have legalized same-sex marriage, 27 did so while Pluto made its way through Capricorn (Andorra will be the 34th — same-sex marriage will become law there in February of 2023, while Pluto is in Capricorn). It was time for the institution of marriage (Capricorn) to evolve and transform (Pluto).

Another institution rocked by Pluto’s travels through Capricorn? The British Royal Family. In January of 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (the Duke and Duchess of Sussex) made the unprecedented decision to step away from their senior roles. And, as Pluto began transiting over the final degrees of Capricorn, Queen Elizabeth II — the longest-reigning British monarch — passed away in September of 2022, and recent polls show that public support for the monarchy is at an all-time low. I do not think the British Royal Family is going to disband any time soon, but it makes sense that after a transit of Pluto through Capricorn, it has undergone a massive internal and public-facing transformation.

I have also found that when Pluto travels through the last few degrees of a sign, that particular sign’s archetypal qualities are temporarily empowered (a “last hurrah” of sort, where Pluto gives that sign one final blast of energy). Capricorn rules conservative ideologies and viewpoints. So, it is no surprise that we are currently seeing an uptick in right-wing politics around the world, including:

• The overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States. 

• Ultra right-wing incumbent Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro vastly outperforming opinion polls for the 2022 presidential election and getting enough votes to prevent opponent — and former president — Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from receiving more than 50 percent of the vote (which would have been enough to win the election). Instead, the two will go to a run-off election that will be held on October 30th. But, that’s not all. As The Washington Post recently noted, “Bolsonarismo performed strongly in Brazil’s congressional elections. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party gained 66 seats in the proportionally elected Chamber of Deputies, becoming the nation’s largest party. Other ring-wing parties often aligned with Bolsonaro won about 150 seats combined. This ring-wing trend was even more pronounced in the Senate where Liberal Party candidates won eight of the 27 races while other right-wingers won another 10. That means two-thirds of Brazil’s states elected right-leaning senators.” If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Bolsonaro’s ultra right-wing politics, “he has expressed a fondness for the country’s past military dictatorship and also freely spews misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ, and racist statements.” 

• In Sweden, a nationalist and right-wing populist political party known as the Sweden Democrats received the second highest number of votes in the country’s recent presidential election. What was once a fringe party won 20.5% of the vote this time around — and is now Sweden’s second most-popular party. 

• Weeks ago, “Italians elected their country’s most right-wing government since the end of World War II (no small matter in a country that has had 69 governments since 1946.)” 

• Far-right French politician Marine LePen did not win the country’s 2022 presidential election, but lost by the smallest margin yet (in the words of the Associated Press, “the far-right has gone mainstream in France.”).

This combination, by the way, is not a common occurrence (the last time Saturn was in Aquarius while Pluto was in Capricorn was in the year 1286). While Pluto’s entry into Aquarius (see this post for more details) in 2024 does not indicate an overnight change, it does mark the beginning of a substantial and incremental shift away from these ultra right-wing ideologies and governments that are currently enjoying

The United States is feeling this Pluto influence even more significantly because it is currently experiencing its Pluto return (Pluto has returned to where it was when the United States was “born”; I first mentioned this event on my Instagram page in April of 2019). With that in mind:

• In February of 2022, three former officers involved in the murder of George Floyd were found guilty by a federal jury for civil rights violations. That same month, it was first reported that former United States president Donald Trump took classified material from the White House to Florida. While that may have seemed like a blip on the radar at the time, it has now turned into a full-blown legal scandal with no signs of abating. 

• The second Pluto peak occurred just one week after The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (and the constitutional right to an abortion). In what I can best describe as “a very Pluto thing”, this event shone the light on abortion opponents’ consistent and relentless chipping away of reproductive rights and the fragility of reproductive rights in the United States.

This Pluto return makes one thing very clear: the United States is in a moment of unprecedented astrological crisis. What once worked and functioned no longer does. While this Pluto return is active, it will be difficult to find solutions (I describe Pluto transits as category 5 hurricanes… you can’t begin to rebuild until the hurricane is over; right now, the

I maintain hope that the United States can be “reborn” after this dark period. Pluto’s involvement, though, means this rebirth can only happen after major systemic restructuring. It will also require that career politicians (from both parties) finally retire and pass the torch to a new generation. Many long-standing politicians are part of the Pluto in Leo generation (born between 1937 and 1956), which, due to massive pride and ego, notoriously has a hard time letting go of power and authority. Among them: Joe Biden, Donald J Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Chuck Grassley.

Looking further ahead, transiting Saturn will cross his IC from May to August of 2024 and then again in February and March of 2025. Saturn crossing the IC (which happens approximately every 28 years) always corresponds to at least one major significant ending in our life. There is a strong sense that a particular chapter (or book) has reached a permanent conclusion. With all this in mind, I would be very surprised if Joe Biden ends up running for (no less winning) a second presidential election. If (and that’s a huge if) both of those were to happen, then I only see him being in office for one year.

Alan Hovhaness on Universal Brother/Sisterhood

By looking at the titles of such musical works as Symphony No. 8 (Arjuna),   Symphony No. 11 (All Men are Brothers) , Bardo Piano Sonata , Fanfare of the New Atlantis,  Concerto Shambala, for violin, sitar and orchestra   one can sense that there is a Theosophical sensibility. The composer is Alan Hovhaness  (March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000), an American-Armenian composer who was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies (surviving manuscripts indicate over 70) and 434 opus numbers.

'Among the many composers influenced by Theosophy we find Henry Cowell, ArthurFarwell, William Grant Still, Dane Rudhyar, Katherine Ruth Heyman, AlanHovhaness, Cyril Scott, Luigi Russolo, Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Edgard Varèse, and others. Theosophy went hand in hand with and helped to define the “ultra-modernist” music of the 20s and 30s. First performed at a Theosophical community in San Luis Obispo, The Tides of Manaunaun(1917) was a solo piano work of Henry Cowell’s in which he had developed his radical use of the “tone cluster” to express the mystical and mythical significance of the Irish god, Manaunaun. In his Lousadzak (1944), Alan Hovhaness, who had attended the same Theosophical community as Cowell, developed an early ‘aleatoric’ technique to express a vision that his spiritual teacher had described; Hovhaness called this technique “spirit murmur.” ' (Matt Marble, Disembodied Sound & The Musical Séances Of Francis Grierson, The Illusioned Ear, Issue One Spring 2014, pp 13-14)

Beginning in the mid-1940s, Hovhaness and two artist friends, Hyman Bloom and Hermon diGiovanno, met frequently to discuss spiritual and musical matters. All three had a strong interest in Indian classical music, and brought many well known Indian musicians to Boston to perform.

In one of several applications for a Guggenheim fellowship (1940), Hovhaness presented his credo at the time of application:

'I propose to create a heroic, monumental style of composition simple enough to inspire all people, completely free from fads, artificial mannerisms and false sophistications, direct, forceful, sincere, always original but never unnatural. Music must be freed from decadence and stagnation. There has been too much emphasis on small things while the great truths have been overlooked. The superficial must be dispensed with. Music must become virile to express big things. It is not my purpose to supply a few pseudo-intellectual musicians and critics with more food for brilliant argumentation, but rather to inspire all mankind with new heroism and spiritual nobility. This may appear to be sentimental and impossible to some, but it must be remembered that Palestrina, Handel and Beethoven would not consider it either sentimental or impossible. In fact, the worthiest creative art has been motivated consciously or unconsciously by the desire for the regeneration of mankind'

Elsewhere he states:

'My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called ‘spirit resonance’ in melody and sound.'

From 1959 through 1963 Hovhaness conducted a series of research trips to India, Hawaii, Japan and South Korea, investigating the ancient traditional musics of these nations and eventually integrating elements of these into his own compositions. His study of Carnatic music in Madras, India (1959–60), during which he collected over 300 ragas, was sponsored by a Fulbright fellowship. While in Madras, he learned to play the veena and composed a work for Carnatic orchestra entitled Nagooran, inspired by a visit to the dargah at Nagore, which was performed by the South Indian Orchestra of All India Radio Madras and broadcast on All-India Radio on February 3, 1960. He compiled a large amount of material on Carnatic ragas in preparation for a book on the subject, but never completed it.

He then studied Japanese gagaku music (learning the wind instruments hichiriki, shō, and ryūteki) in the spring of 1962 with Masatoshi Shamoto in Hawaii, and a Rockefeller Foundation grant allowed him further gagaku studies with Masataro Togi in Japan (1962–63). Also while in Japan, he studied and played the nagauta (kabuki) shamisen and the jōruri (bunraku) shamisen. In recognition of the musical styles he studied in Japan, he wrote Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints, Op. 211 (1965), a concerto for xylophone and orchestra.

Hovhaness' Symphony No.11 was composed in 1960 (with some elements used going back as 1930), as part of a commission on behalf of the New Orleans Philharmonic. It was premiered in March 21 of 1961, under the direction of Frederick Fennell. In the summer of 1969, the composer wrote a "completely new" version of the work, also premiered by the New Orleans Philharmonic, this time under the direction of Werner Torkanowsky in March 31 of 1970. The subtitle of the work refers to the composer's utopian attempt to "express a positive faith in universal cosmic love as the only possible ultimate goal for man and nature. Let all unite on our tiny planet, our floating village, our little space ship as we journey across mysterious endlessness". 

 

He inserted the following in the end: "And the voice of the Lord Buddha was heard like the sound of a great gong hung in the skies, saying that though one met a thousand men on his way they would all be one's brothers." (Walter Simmons)

In a 1970s’s interview, he gave a more realistic expression of this need for brotherhood:

'Yes, yes,, I know. We are in a very dangerous period. We are in danger of destroying ourselves, and I have a great fear about this. There is a great deal of rebellion among the young and I agree with them because I have known this same rebellion all my life. I sympathize with them very much. We have to do something constructive about it. It's not enough to just fly off the handle. Violence won't help. I believe we have to really find the answer by going within, not just being external about it. But it's a very serious problem. The older generation is ruling ruthlessly. I feel that this is a terrible threat to our civilization. It's the greed of huge companies and huge organizations which control life in a kind of a brutal way, and therefore all of my sympathies are with the young people. I hope something can be done about it. It's gotten worse and worse, somehow, because physical science has given us more and more terrible deadly weapons, and the human spirit has been destroyed in so many cases, so what's the use of having the most powerful country in the world if we have killed the soul. It's of no use.' (An Interview with Alan Hovhaness, Ararat: A Quarterly 45, v.12, no. 1 (Winter 1971), pp. 19-31)

Recent book:

Richard O. Burdick, Attunement: An interview with Alan Hovhaness

The book delves into the spirituality and beliefs and composer Alan Hovhaness. San Francisco radio personality Will Noffke interviewed American composer Alan Hovhaness which was aired on Will's program: New Horizons. This interview discusses the music of Hovhaness and delves into the spirituality of Alan, which is a subject not covered by any other known interview or writings of or by Hovhaness. The interview took place February 26, 1978. The day after Hovhaness presented a recital of his music at St. John’s Church in Berkeley, California.