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.
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
What this quote means
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.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a graduation speech to inspire students to make impactful choices.
More from Edward Kennedy
All quotes βWith 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.
Similar quotes
The dead are visible only in the terrible lidless eye of memory.
I was lingering out on the pavement. There was a missing person inside of myself and I needed to find him . . . I felt done for, an empty burned-out wreck . . . Wherever I am, I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows.
What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.
All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.
Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.
What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious.