QUOTES
"The
conquest of war and the pursuit of social justice... must become our grand preoccupation
and magnificent obsession."
"Inevitably,
an individual is measured by his or her largest concerns."
"The
new education must be less concerned with sophistication than compassion. It must
recognize the hazards of tribalism. It must teach man the most difficult lesson
of all—to look at someone anywhere in the world and be able to see the image of
himself. The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must
give way to education for citizenship in the human community. With such an education
and with such self-understanding, it is possible that some nation or people may
come forward with the vital inspiration that men need no less than food. Leadership
on this higher level does not require mountains of gold or thundering propaganda.
It is concerned with human destiny. Human destiny is the issue. People will respond."
"The
essential lesson most people still resist is that they are members of one species.
It is this that we all share—the emergence of a common destiny and the beginning
of the perception, however misty, that something beyond the nation will have to
be brought into being if the human race is to have any meaning."
"I
can imagine no greater satisfaction for a person, in looking back on his life
and work, than to have been able to give some people, however few, a feeling of
genuine pride in belonging to the human species and, beyond that, a zestful yen
to justify that pride."
Life
is an adventure in forgiveness.
Man
is not imprisoned by habit. Great changes in him can be wrought by crisis - once
that crisis can be recognized and understood.
Optimism
doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
The
capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings
with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.
The
individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has
it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.
The
main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters
concerning human destiny.
The
only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found
through the control of force rather than the use of force.
War
is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace.
"Reverence
for life is more than solicitude or sensitivity for life. It is a sense of the
whole, a capacity for inspired response, a respect for the intricate universe
of individual life. It is the supreme awareness of awareness itself."
"Although a man may
have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command
over the meaning of existence for him."
“In
a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the
ultimate responsibility.”
