The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family.
Interpretation
Family provides a crucial sense of stability and support in life.
Morrie Schwartz emphasizes the idea that in a constantly changing world, the family unit serves as the most reliable and secure foundation for individuals. It highlights the importance of familial bonds and support as essential for navigating life's uncertainties.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of maintaining close bonds, one can use this quote to underline the necessity of family.
People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.
The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.
Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.
Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back
It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.
When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
My mother's rules had to do with feminine deportment, so I never played hard enough to break a toy or muddy my dress. My father's rules had to do with never shaming the family by even a hint of scandal, and not providing business rivals with an opportunity to kidnap me or throw acid in my face.
During the sole argument we had when [Chelsea] was in high school, the subject of which I don't even remember, I looked at her and said, 'As long as you're in this house, being president is my second most important job'.
My parents were both born and raised in the Depression. They instilled great values about integrity and the importance of hard work, and I've taken that with me to every job.
There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
My daughter was asked by a little old lady in a London hotel restaurant what her daddy did. She answered, “He’s a pirate” - I was very proud of that answer.
Your children are not your children, they come through you, but they are life itself, wanting to express itself.
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