The family is the corner stone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled.
Interpretation
The family unit is essential for shaping children's values and the overall health of society.
This quote emphasizes the pivotal role of family in influencing children's development, outlining how their aspirations and values are largely shaped by familial relationships. When families falter, the repercussions extend beyond individual children, affecting the broader community and its stability.
In practice
During a speech on child welfare, one might invoke this quote to highlight the importance of family support.
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.
Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.
We do this in order to slow down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely born this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties. And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam-and all who seek to share their conquest-of a simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.
So far are we generally from thinking what we often say of the shortness of life, that at the time when it is necessarily shortest we form projects which we delay to execute, indulge such expectations as nothing but along train of events can gratify, and suffer those passions to gain upon us which are only excusable in the prime of life.
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves.
If you lose a parent, it never goes away. As a kid, I dreamed about my father coming back for 15 or 20 years. I still do sometimes.
What do most people say on their deathbed? They don't say, 'I wish I'd made more money.' What they say is, 'I wish I'd spent more time with my family and done more for society or my community.'
My dad is a Chatty Cathy, the social butterfly; friendly; knows everybody in the whole world by six degrees; tells me that every performance is the greatest he's ever seen, every new outfit is the coolest. Constant cheerleader.
Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child's life and it's like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.
He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.
It can't hurt to go to the people you love, whose blood type courses through your veins and whose DNA, from a certain angle, contains many of the same markings as yours. You don't have to take their advice, but let them share their version of solutions to life's difficulties. Good or bad - it could be interesting.
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