We bequeath to you, the next generation, our knowledge but also our problems. While we still live, let us join hands, hearts and minds to work together for their solution so that your world will be better than ours and the world of your children even better.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the responsibility of the current generation to share knowledge and collaborate in solving problems for a better future.
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow's quote underscores the dual legacy that each generation inherits: not only the wisdom and knowledge gained from the past but also the challenges and problems that need addressing. It calls for a collective effort across generations, advocating for unity in action and thought, to ensure that the ensuing generations can inherit a world improved by the solutions we create together today.
In practice
This quote can be used in a graduation speech to inspire young people about their responsibilities.
The only difference between men and women in science is that the women have the babies. This makes it more difficult for women in science but should not be seen as a barrier, for it is merely another challenge to be overcome.
We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.
The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination.
I feel it is now my duty to speak to young women, to encourage them to have careers and, particularly, careers in science.
I wasn't handed college or graduate school or anything else on a silver platter. I had to work very hard, but I did it because I wanted to. That's the real key to happiness. I think unhappy people are those who feel that circumstances are forcing them into a pattern. Happy people are not slaves to the system.
They told me that, as a woman, I'd never get into graduate school in physics, so they got me a job as a secretary at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and promised that, if I were a good girl, I would take courses there.
One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.
We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.
By reading so much, my vocabulary automatically improved along with my comprehension.
Access to quality education has enabled me to reach far beyond the Bangladeshi village I grew up in.
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