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The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Interpretation

What this quote means

A society's moral values are reflected in how it treats its children.

This quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer highlights the fundamental moral responsibility of a society to care for its children. It posits that the true measure of a society's integrity and ethics can be gauged by the attention, resources, and love it devotes to nurturing and protecting the younger generation, who are the future of that society.

Themes

MoralitySocietyChildrenEthicsResponsibility

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about community values, this quote can emphasize the importance of child welfare programs.

More from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
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In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
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Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then let’s see something to prove it.
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It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ
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...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.
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Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.
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