As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Audrey HepburnRead
Somebody said to me the other day, 'You know, it's really senseless, what you're doing. There's always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you're just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].' My answer is, 'Okay, then, let's start with your grandchild. Don't buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don't take it to the hospital of it has an accident. It's against life-against humanity-to think that way.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of taking action against suffering, regardless of its inevitability.
Audrey Hepburn addresses the idea that some may view efforts to alleviate suffering as futile due to its permanence in the world. She counters this perspective by highlighting the moral obligation to help others, arguing that neglecting to assist those in need is fundamentally against the principles of humanity. Hepburn's response underlines the significance of compassion and taking responsibility for the well-being of others, particularly the vulnerable, rather than resigning to despair.
Themes
SufferingCompassionHumanityActionHelp
In practice
Example use cases
This quote would be powerful when advocating for humanitarian efforts in a speech.
More from Audrey Hepburn
All quotes →If I'm honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.
Audrey HepburnRead
True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.
Audrey HepburnRead
On the one hand maybe I’ve remained infantile, while on the other I matured quickly, because at a young age I was very aware of suffering and fear.
Audrey HepburnRead
This is what you do on your very first day in Paris. You get yourself, not a drizzle, but some honest-to-goodness rain, and you find yourself someone really nice and drive her through the Bois de Boulogne in a taxi. The rain's very important. That's when Paris smells its sweetest. It's the damp chestnut trees.
Audrey HepburnRead
I speak for those children who cannot speak for themselves, children who have absolutely nothing but their courage and their smiles, their wits and their dreams.
Audrey HepburnRead
Similar quotes
Very often, development agencies or even some of the humanitarian actors choose the... more comfortable type of work, where it is safe, while the more important work has to be done where it is profoundly unsafe.
Peter MaurerRead
It doesn’t faze me what anyone says about me. It doesn’t matter what anyone says about me. I’m a totally different entity to what other people think. Michael and Tyson are two different people. I’m Tyson here.
Mike TysonRead
Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Lord TennysonRead
Not the torturer will scare me, nor the body's final fall, nor the barrels of death's rifles, nor the shadows on the wall, nor the night when to the ground the last dim star of pain, is hurled but the blind indifference of a merciless, unfeeling world.
Roger WatersRead
I have no help to send, therefore I must go myself.
J. R. R. TolkienRead
if they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away
Toni MorrisonRead