To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.
Edgar Lee MastersRead
. . . the weal of the race, and the cause of humanity, here and now, are enough To give life meaning and death as well.
Interpretation
Life gains significance through our collective well-being and our commitment to humanity.
This quote by Edgar Lee Masters suggests that the purpose of life is intertwined with the welfare of others and the broader human experience. It implies that our actions in the present, aimed at benefiting society, grant both life and death a deeper meaning, emphasizing the importance of community and altruism in understanding existence.
In practice
During a speech about social responsibility, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of serving others.
To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.
The tongue may be an unruly member-- But silence poisons the soul.
Genius is a bend in the creek where bright water has gathered, and which mirrors the trees, the sky and the banks. It just does that because it is there and the scenery is there. Talent is a fine mirror with a silver frame, with the name of the owner engraved on the back.
To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire-It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddleβ And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.
Look at it this way: There are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100 percent, but I understand it, have lived it. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation.
It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much.
Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.
A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
Pornographers are the enemies of women only because our contemporary ideology of pornography does not encompass the possibility of change, as if we were the slaves of history and not its makers. . . . Pornography is a satire on human pretensions.
It has always irked me as improper that there are still so many people for whom the sky is no more than a mass of random points of light. I do not see why we should recognize a house, a tree, or a flower here below and not, for example, the red Arcturus up there in the heavens as it hangs from its constellation Bootes, like a basket hanging from a balloon.
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