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.
You don't get points for predicting rain. You get points for building arks.
It's hard to beat a person that never gives up.
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
I'm reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.
You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.
It's a new day, a new beginning for your new life. With discipline you will be amazed at how much progress you'll be able to make. What have you got to lose except the guilt and fear of the past?
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