I want people to remember me as someone whose life has been helpful to humanity.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of contributing positively to society and being remembered for one's helpfulness.
Thomas Sankara's quote reflects a profound desire for a legacy that is centered around service to humanity. It suggests that the true measure of a person's life is not in their wealth or status but in how they have positively impacted others. This perspective encourages individuals to act with kindness and purpose, striving to leave behind a world that is better than they found it.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students about their future impact on society.
Our revolution in Burkina Faso draws on the totality of mans experiences since the first breath of humanity. We wish to be the heirs of all the revolutions of the world, of all the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World. We draw the lessons of the American revolution.
Let there be an end to the arrogance of the big powers who miss no opportunity to put the rights of the people in question. Africa's absence from the club of those who have the right to veto is unjust and should be ended.
We must dare to invent the future
It's really a pity that there are observers who view political events like comic strips. There has to be a Zorro, there has to be a star. No, the problem of Upper Volta is more serious than that. It was a grave mistake to have looked for a man, a star, at all costs, to the point of creating one, that is, to the point of attributing the ownership of the event to captain Sankara, who must have been the brains, etc.
Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave.
It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.
In this world, all--men, women, and kings--must live for the present. We can only live for the future for God
There must be some kind of way out of here,' said the joker to the thief.
What is the real function, the essential function, the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words of fonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome forms?
Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.
Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them.
The more honest and authentic we are, the more deeply we go into the mystery of our own being.
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