International Day of Non-Violence – October 2
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Nonviolence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak…Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”
– Cesar Chavez
World Teacher Day – October 5
“A teachers’ job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well grounded.”
– Darwin D. Martin
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”
– Socrates
“Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.”
– Coleen Wilcox
“If you are planning for a year, plant rice. If you are planning for a decade, plant trees. If you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.”
– Chinese proverb
“Teaching is more than imparting knowledge; it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts; it is acquiring understanding.”
– William Arthur Ward
Farmers’ Day – October 12
“Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man.”
– George Washington
“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.”
– John F. Kennedy
“Bailing twine turns every farmer into MacGyver.”
– Unknown
Dictionary Day – October 16
“I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”
– Steven Wright
“Cell phone (n.) – A device used for looking less alone while in public places by yourself.”
– boredpanda.com
“Friend (n.) – One of the many strangers on Facebook.”
– boredpanda.com
Black Poetry Day – October 17
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
– Maya Angelou
“The torture of being the unseen object, and the constantly observed subject.”
– Amiri Baraka
Statue of Liberty dedicated – October 28, 1886
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
– Emma Lazarus
Halloween – October 31
“Halloween was confusing. All my life my parents said, ‘Never take candy from strangers.’ And then they dressed me up and said, ‘Go beg for it.’”
– Rita Rudner
“A person should always choose a costume which is in direct contrast to her own personality.”
– Lucy Van Pelt
“Nothing on earth is so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night.”
– Steve Almond
“There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch.”
– Robert Brault
National Magic Week – 4th week in October
“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.”
– J.K. Rowling
“Magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet.”
– Arthur C. Clarke
“Magic touches people in the way great art does. It lets them see the world with new eyes.”
– Drummond Money-Coutts
Adopt a Shelter Animal Month
“True love is a hop, skip and a dog shelter away.”
– lovetoknow.com
“I look at the dog hair, the chewed-up furniture, and the stains, and then I look to my rescue dog and think … worth it.”
– lovetoknow.com
“In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him.”
– Derek Bruce
Family History Month
“We all carry inside us people who came before us.”
– Liam Callahan
“There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children- one is roots and the other, wings.”
– Hodding S. Carter
“Learning your family history is the key to unlocking who you are.”
– Unknown
“We are all the product of things we’ve never seen and people we’ve never met. In fact, if just one little detail had been changed in their lives, we might not even exist.”
– Melanie Johnson
Polish American History Month
“In October, we celebrate Polish American Heritage Month in the United States. Our Nation owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to the millions of freedom-loving Poles who have come to our shores to build a new land. Polish Americans can be justly proud of the vital contributions people of Polish descent have made to our Nation in the arts, the sciences, religion, scholarship, and every area of endeavor.”
– from The American Presidency Project, Proclamation 5548 – Polish Heritage Month 1986