To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
Interpretation
Challenging popular opinions requires immense bravery and integrity.
The quote emphasizes that standing up against widely accepted beliefs or popular opinions, especially among friends and peers, is a significant and courageous act. It highlights the difficulty of maintaining one's convictions in the face of social pressure, suggesting that true heroism often lies in the willingness to be different or to challenge the status quo.
In practice
In a discussion on social issues, this quote can inspire individuals to voice unpopular opinions.
Generally students are the best vehicles for passing on ideas, for their thoughts are plastic and can be molded and they can adjust the ideas of old men to the shape of reality as they find it in villages and hills of China or in ghettos and suburbs of America.
Power in America today is control of the means of communication.
I happen to think that American politics is one of the noblest arts of mankind; and I cannot do anything else but write about it.
Politics in America is the binding secular religion.
History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.
There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.
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Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctor and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease.
This is the greatest country under the sun. But we must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty, cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice.
The ultimate weapon isn't this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It's the ability to say No and take the consequences.
Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
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