The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family.
Interpretation
Family provides a crucial sense of stability and support in life.
Morrie Schwartz emphasizes the idea that in a constantly changing world, the family unit serves as the most reliable and secure foundation for individuals. It highlights the importance of familial bonds and support as essential for navigating life's uncertainties.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of maintaining close bonds, one can use this quote to underline the necessity of family.
People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.
The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.
Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.
Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back
It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.
When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
[About gorillas] You take these fine, regal animals. How many (human) fathers have the same sense of paternity? How many human mothers are more caring? The family structure is unbelievably strong.
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can only be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice. Justice requires that we carefully weigh rights and privileges and assure that each member of a community receives his due share. Love does not weigh rights and privileges too carefully because it prompts each to bear the burden of the other.
Society should see parenting as a public health issue and help parents to bring their children up feeling loved. We have birthing classes, but no parenting classes. The latter is desperately needed if we are to avoid self-destruction.
How beautiful is the family that recites the Rosary every evening.
I had to make a choice at one point in my life, of missing films or missing my children. It was a very easy decision to make because I missed my children so very much.
This was when I heard that the first symptom of old age is when you begin to resemble your father.
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