Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Interpretation
One should strive to achieve something meaningful before leaving this world.
Horace Mannβs quote encourages individuals to dedicate their lives toward achieving victories that benefit humanity. It suggests that personal accomplishments should not come at the expense of broader social contributions, and emphasizes the importance of making a positive impact before one's time is up.
In practice
This quote can be used in a graduation speech to inspire graduates to pursue impactful careers.
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.
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.
Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate.
When you once get an idea in which you believe with all your heart, work it out.
If you are relaxing and subconsciously thinking about your coming race, you are going to perform at just about 100 percent efficiency.
I can hear sweat trickling down your cheek_x000D_ _x000D_ Your heartbeat sound like Sasquatch feet_x000D_ _x000D_ Thundering, shaking the concrete.
Just be patient, she told herself, and with the mounting pages, the strength of her writing fist grew.
You could be writing the book that changes your life.
The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
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