Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.
Woodrow WilsonRead
Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the fundamental role of economic stability in enabling spiritual and social well-being.
Woodrow Wilson's quote underscores the interconnectedness of economic needs and spiritual life, arguing that material sustenance is a prerequisite for fulfilling moral and spiritual obligations. He highlights that even in religious practices, the necessity for basic needs like food is paramount; without these essentials, higher aspirations for worship or love become unattainable. Essentially, Wilson advocates for recognizing that economic factors profoundly affect one's ability to engage in spiritual and communal life.
Themes
BusinessSpiritualityDaily BreadEconomic StabilityWorship
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about community service, one might quote Wilson to emphasize the importance of addressing poverty.
More from Woodrow Wilson
All quotes →Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.
Woodrow WilsonRead
The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the processes of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties.
Woodrow WilsonRead
We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers.
Woodrow WilsonRead
The way to stop financial joyriding is to arrest the chauffeur, not the automobile.
Woodrow WilsonRead
Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.
Woodrow WilsonRead
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