Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.
Interpretation
Helping others ultimately benefits ourselves, as interconnectedness is key to our humanity.
Horace Mann's quote emphasizes the importance of altruism and service to others, suggesting that neglecting the needs of others undermines our own existence and essence. It highlights the interconnectedness of humanity, where our actions toward others reflect on our own character and well-being.
In practice
In a speech about community service, this quote can inspire volunteers to understand the value of their contributions.
Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
There may be frugality which is not economy. A community, that withholds the means of education from its children, withholds the bread of life and starves their souls.
Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.
Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.
Stereotypes should never influence policy or public opinion.
I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.
I have seen him set fire to his wigwam and smooth over the graves of his fathers... clap his hand in silence over his mouth, and take the last look over his fair hunting ground, and turn his face in sadness to the setting sun.
When it comes to my own turn to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue, and whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my fathers in honor. It is human at least, if not divine.
So as through a glass and darkly_x000D_ The age long strife I see_x000D_ Where I fought in many guises,_x000D_ Many names - but always me.
I realized that conventional views of Christian faith that I'd heard when I was growing up were simply made up - and I realized that many parts of the story of the early Christian movement had been left out.
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