MondayMay 25, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
About one month before he was killed, when asked by David Frost how his obituary should read: Something about the fact that I made some contribution to either my country, or those who were less well off. I think back to what Camus wrote about the fact that perhaps this world is a world in which children suffer, but we can lessen the number of suffering children, and if you do not do this, then who will do this? I'd like to feel that I'd done something to lessen that suffering.
The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals of American society.
Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
I am not one of those who think that coming in second or third is winning.
'In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'
Aeschylus wrote: 'In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total ;of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Each generation makes it's own accounting to its children.
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