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.
Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.
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.
I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.
I'm a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.
If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one.
Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things befall you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.
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