I am only a child. Yet I know that if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this would be.
Severn Cullis-SuzukiRead
In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share, not be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do? You grownups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make your actions reflect your words.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote questions the hypocrisy of adults who preach values but fail to practice them.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki's quote highlights the contradiction between the values taught to children and the actions exhibited by adults. It calls for introspection and accountability among grownups to ensure that their behaviors align with the moral lessons they impart to younger generations, particularly emphasizing respect, kindness, and responsibility towards others and the environment.
Themes
HypocrisyValuesEducationAccountabilityResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of leading by example for children.
More from Severn Cullis-Suzuki
All quotes →I was at Earth Summit in Rio 20 years ago... I was only 12 years old. And when I was speaking to the U.N. I was fighting for my future.
Severn Cullis-SuzukiRead
In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.
Severn Cullis-SuzukiRead
I worry that more and more kids my age are growing up without experiencing the outdoors, which means that fewer will care about the natural world.
Severn Cullis-SuzukiRead
Fragmentation is a big part of the problem. You have a city where trash is taken away from the curb every week, and you don't see it any more, and you don't have any sense of where water comes from. So there's no sense of responsibility and accountability and there's also no sense of empowerment for our actions.
Severn Cullis-SuzukiRead
Similar quotes
We have found that the most successful teachers in low-income communities operate like successful leaders. They establish a vision of where their students will be performing at the end of the year that many believe to be unrealistic.
Wendy KoppRead
My basic idea is that programming is the most powerful medium of developing the sophisticated and rigorous thinking needed for mathematics, for grammar, for physics, for statistics, for all the "hard" subjects.... In short, I believe more than ever that programming should be a key part of the intellectual development of people growing up.
Seymour PapertRead
Not everyone realises that to write a really good piece of journalism is at least as demanding intellectually as the achievement of any scholar.
Max WeberRead
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
The exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the most important points of training that take place there; and the first-rate teacher, by the keenness of the remoter interests which he is able to awaken, will provide abundant opportunities for its occurrence.
William JamesRead
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
Alain De BottonRead