Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
Great causes and little men go ill together.
Interpretation
Ambitious goals are often undermined by those who lack vision or capability.
Jawaharlal Nehru's quote suggests a disconnect between significant ambitions or societal goals and the individuals who may pursue them. It implies that great causes require capable and visionary individuals, and when these grand objectives are taken on by those who are not equipped or motivated, the outcome is likely to be disappointing or ineffective.
In practice
This quote can be used to motivate young leaders in a seminar about social change.
Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
India has known the innocence and insouciance of childhood, the passion and abandon of youth, and the ripe wisdom of maturity that comes from long experience of pain and pleasure; and over and over a gain she has renewed her childhood and youth and age
Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.
Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit.
If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably.
Man as Atman is really free; as man he is bound, changed by every physical condition.
The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.
Everyone is born into a certain era. I wouldn't want to see anyone faced with the circumstances that prevailed at the time, when there were few or no alternatives.
Whatever thing a man sets his heart on...is his god; and if his god doesn't also happen to be the true and living God of Israel that man is laboring in idolatry.
Try not to associate bodily defect with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason
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