Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world.
Interpretation
Committed individuals can have a significant impact on the world.
This quote by Margaret Mead emphasizes the power of passion and dedication among even a small group of people. It suggests that when a few individuals are truly committed to a cause, they possess the ability to drive substantial changes in society, challenging the notion that only large groups or organizations can effect change.
In practice
During a community meeting to inspire local activism, this quote can be shared to motivate participants.
Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
EARTH DAY uses one of humanity's great discoveries, the discovery of anniversaries by which, throughout time, human beings have kept their sorrows and their joys, their victories, their revelations and their obligations alive, for re-celebration and re-dedication another year, another decade, another century, another eon.
American society is very like a fish society. . . . Among certain species of fish, the only thing which determines order of dominance is length of time in the fishbowl. The oldest resident picks on the newest resident, and if the newest resident is removed to a new bowl, he, as oldest resident, will pick on the newcomers.
This is the moment of your defeat; you have just put in the last nails in the coffin of communism.
I think that to acknowledge a new generation is to acknowledge some degree of obsolescence in yourself, and that is very hard to do and often comes with undeniable anger.
Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change; where we are right, make us easy to live with.
So why are we having to fight in 2012 against politicians who want to end access to birth control? It's like we woke up in a bad episode of 'Mad Men.'
I will grow. I will become something new and grand, but no grander than I now am. Just as the sky will be different in a few hours, its present perfection and completeness is not deficient, so am I presently perfect and not deficient. I will be different tomorrow. I will grow and I am not deficient.
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.
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