We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we made.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the notion that our actions and choices today will impact the future, allowing us to continue living through the legacies we leave behind.
Edward Kennedy's quote reflects a profound understanding of the relationship between the present and the future. It suggests that while individual lives are finite, the contributions we make and the world we shape will endure beyond our existence. The future serves as a canvas painted by our decisions, highlighting the importance of living with intention and purpose, as our collective efforts contribute to a legacy that outlives us.
In practice
This quote can be used in a graduation speech to inspire students to make impactful choices.
Immigrant families have integrated themselves into our communities, establishing deep roots. Whenever they have settled, they have made lasting contributions to the economic vitality and diversity of our communities and our nation. Our economy depends on these hard-working, taxpaying workers. They have assisted America in its economic boom.
With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion. With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race.
What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system.
Regulation has gone astray. . . . Either because they have become captives of regulated industries or captains of outmoded administrative agencies, regulators all too often encourage or approve unreasonably high prices, inadequate service, and anticompetitive behavior. The cost of this regulation is always passed on to the consumer. And that cost is astronomical.
We want to support our troops because they didn't make the decision to go there... but I don't think it should be open-ended. We ought to have a benchmark where the administration has to come back and give us a report.
Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in - and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.
The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church.
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder - is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
Any conception of a god that is less than sovereign is an idol and no god at all.
Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on irrepresentable, transcendental factors, it is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of the same thing.
I know how young black men are seen. They're boys - scared little boys, oftentimes. I was one of them. I was completely afraid of the Los Angeles Police Department.
I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations.
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