“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!"

-from The New Collosus by Emma Lazarus 1883

 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."-
 Declaration of Independence  July 4, 1776

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respected stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions;
 whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges…”
George Washington

Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich in the United Nations Art Collection


And He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. - Isaiah 2:4

                                                                                                                                                                                          


                                                                                                                                 

            Sea Fever
          by John Masefield

  I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

 I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

 I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.