There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.
Interpretation
This quote speaks to the fatigue of enduring hardship and longing for better days.
Martin Luther King, Jr. uses the metaphor of seasons to illustrate the transition from the warmth and joy of summer to the cold and isolation of winter. It reflects a universal human experience of growing weary of oppression and longing for the brighter, more hopeful times in life.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a speech on civil rights to inspire those struggling against oppression.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
But I don't begrudge anybody, because I know how hard it is to have that dream and to make it happen, whether or not it's just to put a roof over your head and food on the table.
Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities.
What's wrong with trying hard and showing up and being good at your job? We really need to look at ourselves and say we need to reevaluate this. We need to reevaluate that women who ask for a pay raise or ask for a promotion - it's actually an okay thing. It's okay to be ambitious; it's okay to be over-prepared.
Remembering that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped.
All motivation is self-motivation. Your family, your boss, or your co-workers can try to get your engine going, but until you decide what to accomplish, nothing will happen.
If you aim higher than you expect, you could reach higher than you dreamed.
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