People say important things. I believe our most profound statements are often made during routine conversations and are rarely recorded. Other times, in writing and public speech, people say important things that others repeat. Here, because people say important things, I share some of the comments and writing of others, that inspire me.
In the words of The Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
The Lorax by Theodor Seuss Geisel—aka Dr. Seuss. Random House Children’s Books, (1971).
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Dr. Jane Goodall
“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”
Thomas Paine
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II. Scene II.
“Poverty is a very complicated issue, but feeding a child isn’t.”
Jeff Bridges
“There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death. Whether it’s the mundane violence we do to our bodies by overeating toxic food or drink or the extreme violence of child abuse, domestic warfare, life-threatening poverty, addiction, or state terrorism.”
Bell Hooks
On Children
Kahlil Gibran
1883-1931
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your Children are not your Children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your Children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
From The Prophet (Knopf, 1923). This poem is in the public domain.