Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Wangari MaathaiRead
I would like to call on young people to commit themselves to activities that contribute toward achieving their long-term dreams. They have the energy and creativity to shape a sustainable future. To the young people I say, you are a gift to your communities and indeed the world. You are our hope and our future.
Interpretation
Young people have the potential to create positive change and should pursue their dreams for a sustainable future.
Wangari Maathai emphasizes the importance of youth engagement in activities that align with their aspirations for a sustainable future. She views young individuals as vital contributors to their communities and the world, highlighting their energy, creativity, and potential to bring about meaningful change, thereby instilling hope for a better tomorrow.
In practice
During a graduation speech to encourage students to pursue their passions.
Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
I know there is pain when sawmills close and people lose jobs, but we have to make a choice. We need water and we need these forests.
We’re constantly being bombarded by problems that we face and sometimes we can get completely overwhelmed. [But] we should always feel like a hummingbird. I may feel insignificant, but I don’t want to be like the other animals watching the planet go down the drain. I’ll be a hummingbird, I’ll do the best I can.
As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service
It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
Christ the Lord is risen to-day, Sons of men and angels say. Raise your joys and triumphs high; Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.
I don't know whether it's the athlete in me or the passion I have for the game: I always think that I can step back on the field and play.
If we are to help heal the world, we need to remember that it is a sacred place. Our actions need to be positive statements, reminders that even in the worst times there is a world worth struggling for.
Let us be aware of our power to create a dream of heaven where everything is possible. Help us to use our imagination to guide the dream of our life, the magic of our creation. Today let something extraordinary happen that will change our life forever; let everything we do and say be an expression of the beauty in our heart, always based on love
O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! Then with passion would I shake the world.
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