When a person is born we rejoice, and when they're married we jubilate, but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened.
Interpretation
We celebrate life events joyfully but struggle to acknowledge death honestly.
This quote by Margaret Mead highlights the contrasting ways society deals with the significant events of life, namely birth, marriage, and death. While the beginnings of life and the union in marriage are met with celebration and joy, the end of life often prompts avoidance and silence, pointing to a societal discomfort with mortality and the natural cycle of life.
In practice
This quote could be used in a eulogy to remind attendees of the importance of celebrating life while also mourning death.
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.
I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time.
A lot of people don't like the road, but it's as natural to me as breathing.
Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it, spend time with your families.
It will take all your heart, it will take all your breath It will be short, it will not be simple
You know, some people fall right through the hole in their lives. It's invisible, but they come to it after time, never knowing where.
There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
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