We may be personally defeated, but our principles never!
Interpretation
Personal failures do not diminish the strength of our principles.
This quote emphasizes the idea that while we may face personal setbacks or defeats, the principles we stand for remain strong and unwavering. It highlights the importance of integrity and the belief that our values can endure despite individual challenges and adversities.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience and ethics.
Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury.
Surely, nothing can be more dangerous than the doctrine that the moral obligations of men change with the latitude and longitude of a place.
I do not believe that God has created us under this dire necessity to toil, like beasts, to sustain life. I believe it is his will that we should hold absolute mastery over time, so as to devote it mainly to intellectual and moral improvement, domestic enjoyment, and social intercourse.
If the State cannot survive the anti-slavery agitation, then let the State perish. If the Church must be cast down by the strugglings of Humanity to be free, then let the Church fall and its fragments be scattered to the four winds of Heaven, never more to curse the earth.
Has not the experience of two centuries shown that gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice? Is there an instance, in the history of the world, where slaves have been educated for freedom by their task-masters?
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.
That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say.
Only one form of contagion travels faster than a virus. And that's fear.
Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as 'grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.
Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.
The mark of fear is not easily removed.
And if I know anything at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.
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