I thought, I'm only going to be on this planet once, and only for a short time. What can I do with my life that will lead to permanent benefits?
Interpretation
Reflecting on the brevity of life, the quote emphasizes the importance of making meaningful contributions.
John Templeton highlights the significance of our limited time on Earth and encourages individuals to consider how their actions can create lasting positive impacts. The realization that life is fleeting inspires a focus on achieving purposeful goals that benefit not only oneself but also the larger community.
In practice
In a motivational speech to encourage youth to engage in community service.
The correct description is that we try every day to become more humble when we talk about divinity, we try to realize how little we know and how open minded we should be. It's self centered to think that human beings, as limited as we are, can describe divinity.
Life is made up not necessarily of great sacrifices or high-level duties but of little things. The smiles, the kindnesses, the commitments and obligations and responsibilities that are given habitually and lovingly are the blessings that win and preserve the heart and bring comfort to one's self as we as to others. This is the ministry of service performed by every useful life.
The correct description is that we try every day to become more humble when we talk about divinity, we try to realize how little we know and how open minded we should be.
The objective of our religious foundations is to teach people that they are hurting themselves when they say they believe something. What we should realize is we know almost nothing about God and therefore we should be eager to search and to learn.
The idea that an individual can find God is terribly self-centered. It is like a wave thinking it can find the sea.
Three of my children are medical doctors; they know at least a hundred times as much about your body as my grandfather knew, but they don't know much more about soul than he did.
Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.
What I call a mimetic crisis is a situation of conflict so intense that on both sides people act the same way and talk the same way even though, or because, they are more and more hostile to each other.
Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.
My philosophy of defense is to keep the pressure on an opponent until you get to his emotions
The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep - he hath awakened from the dream of life - 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife.
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