You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.
Fannie Lou HamerRead
Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.
Interpretation
Recognizing and appreciating our origins and the support we received is essential for growth.
In this quote, Fannie Lou Hamer emphasizes the importance of remembering our roots and the experiences that have shaped us. It highlights the notion that we should acknowledge and appreciate the people and circumstances that have helped us navigate through life's challenges, symbolized by the 'bridges' that allow us to move forward. This perspective encourages gratitude and reverence for our past as we continue to grow and proceed in life.
In practice
During a graduation speech, one could use this quote to remind students of their journey and those who helped them.
You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.
People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict.
One day, I know the struggle will change. There's got to be a change - not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.
Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America?
I was forced away from the plantation because I wouldn't go back and withdraw, you know, my literacy test after I had tried to take it. I wouldn't go back.
Every red stripe in that flag represents the black man's blood that has been shed.
All my life I have dealt with objective matters; hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to carry out official functions.
The is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has it exceptions.
Let every man be master of his time.
We have to do the best we are capable of. This is our sacred human responsibility.
Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.
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