Time is the most valuable thing you have - and I'm not just talking about the minutes for which you're paid.
Eli BroadRead
Who you spend your life with-much more so than how you choose to spend it-is the most important decision you can make. Do it right. That's the best advice I can give you.
Interpretation
The people you choose to associate with define your life's quality more than your activities.
This quote emphasizes that the relationships we cultivate are paramount to our overall happiness and success in life. Choosing the right companions is crucial, as they significantly influence our experiences, perspectives, and well-being. Focusing on meaningful connections can lead to a more fulfilling life, which is perhaps the most valuable advice we can receive.
In practice
During a motivational speech to a youth group about making life decisions.
Time is the most valuable thing you have - and I'm not just talking about the minutes for which you're paid.
How absurd that our students tuck their cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPads, and iPods into their backpacks when they enter a classroom and pull out a tattered textbook.
If you ask why I do what I do - I want to make a difference. I don't just want to maintain the status quo. I want to help people, to work with institutions or create ones when they don't exist.
Public education is the key civil rights issue of the 21st century. Our nation's knowledge-based economy demands that we provide young people from all backgrounds and circumstances with the education and skills necessary to become knowledge workers. If we don't, we run the risk of creating an even larger gap between the middle class and the poor. This gap threatens our democracy, our society and the economic future of America.
Los Angeles is such a great meritocracy. Where can someone with my background - don't have the right family background, the right religion, the right provenance or whatever you want to call it - I come here and I'm accepted. The city's been good to me. And I want to give back.
Contemporary art challenges us.. it broadens our horizons. It asks us to think beyond the limits of conventional wisdom.
You know that I love you." And despite herself, Coraline nodded. It was true. The other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing.
I think, really, that the only way a person can open their heart to someone who is so much another is really by knowing them... whether that's in a classroom, or a soccer team, or a food pantry, or any of those things. I mean, we're kind of more alike than we are different.
I've traveled around the world, and what's so revealing is that, despite the differences in culture, politics, language, how people dress, there is a universal feeling that we all want the same thing. We deeply want to be respected and appreciated for our differences.
And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
I like people with their own opinions, and I like people who argue with me. It's very exhausting to be in a room full of people who just nod and smile.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.