It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip the imagination of others. Rather, it is the values upon which our system is built. These values imply our adherence not only to liberty and individual freedom, but also to international peace, law and order, and constructive social purpose. When we depart from these values, we do so at our peril.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of values over material wealth in shaping society's image and identity.
J. William Fulbright's quote highlights that it is not material success or infrastructure that truly captivates others, but the foundational values that underpin a society. These values encompass not only personal freedom and liberty but also the commitment to peace, law, and communal benefit. The quote warns that straying from these core principles can lead to dire consequences for both individuals and society as a whole.
In practice
In a speech about community values during a town hall meeting.
International educational exchange is the most significant current project designed to continue the process of humanizing mankind to the point, we would hope, that men can learn to live in peace-eventually even to cooperate in constructive activities rather than compete in a mindless contest of mutual destruction....We must try to expand the boundaries of human wisdom, empathy and perception, and there is no way of doing that except through education.
The price of empire is America's soul, and that price is too high.
Maturity requires a final accommodation between our aspirations and our limitations.
Finally, the Program aims, through these means, to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.
We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.
Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.
It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.
Worship is as natural to the human family as the sing of the sun is to the cosmic order.
hate blows a bubble of despair into hugeness world system universe and bang -fear buries a tomorrow under woe and up comes yesterday most green and young
Overly simplistic suggestions that we ban people from entering this country, based on religion, or ban people from an entire region of the world is counterproductive. It will not work. We need to build bridges to communities, to American-Muslim communities right now, to encourage them to help us in our homeland security efforts.
Time takes life away_x000D_ and gives us memory, gold with flame,_x000D_ black with embers.
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