No man (sic) has learned to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Length without breadth is like a self-contained tributary having no outward flow to the ocean. Stagnant, still and stale, it lacks both life and freshness. In order to live creatively and meaningfully, our self-concern must be wedded to other concerns.
Interpretation
True living comes from caring about others, not just oneself.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. emphasizes that a meaningful life transcends individual interests and embraces the broader responsibilities we have towards humanity. He illustrates the importance of connecting our personal lives with the needs of the community, likening a life focused only on self-interest to a stagnant water body that cannot sustain itself or contribute to the larger world.
In practice
In a speech about community service, this quote can inspire attendees to think beyond themselves.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
Let us never yield to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day.
... where Solomon says that 'Wisdom has built herself a house' (Prov. 9:1), he refers darkly in these words to the preparation of the flesh of the Lord: for the true Wisdom did not dwell in another's building, but built for Itself that dwelling-place from the body of the Virgin.
Diabetes taught me discipline.
We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.
Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.
Que me voulez-vous?' said he in a growl of which the music was wholly confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched, and seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly should wring from him a smile. My answer commenced uncompromisingly: - 'Monsieur,' I said, je veux l'impossible, des choses inouïes.
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