If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity.
Robert KennedyRead
Our generation was born during the turmoil following the First World War. That war marked the dividing line - at least for the Western World - between the comfortable security of the 19th century and the instability and flux of our own time.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the significant impact of World War I on the subsequent generation.
Robert Kennedy's quote encapsulates the profound changes experienced by those born in the aftermath of the First World War. He highlights how this tumultuous event created a stark contrast between the relative stability of the 19th century and the uncertainty of the 20th century, underscoring the long-lasting effects of global conflict on societal conditions and generational experiences.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the impact of historical events on subsequent generations.
If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity.
Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
Within the United States, we have put great emphasis upon political freedoms. Because it has been our experience that these freedoms can lead to others.
It is one thing to open job opportunities. It is another to train people to fill them, or to persuade American enterprise to seek Negro as well as white applicants.
Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans.
All the old history was written for the amusement of the ruling classes. The lower classes couldn't read, and their rulers didn't care about remembering what happened to them.
The men who founded and governed Massachusetts and Connecticut took themselves so seriously that they kept track of everything they did for the benefit of posterity and hoarded their papers so carefully that the whole history of the United States, recounted mainly by their descendants, has often appeared to be the history of New England writ large.
...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
The year of my birth, 1940, was the fulcrum of America in the twentieth century, when the nation was balanced precariously between the darkness of the Great Depression on one side and the storms of war in Europe and the Pacific on the other.
This above all makes history useful and desirable; it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.
When I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires. You know, when people talk about the British Empire, they always forget that all the European countries had empires.
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