The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
Interpretation
Progress is measured by how well we care for the less fortunate rather than by how much we accumulate for the wealthy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's quote emphasizes that true progress in society should be assessed not by the wealth and abundance accumulated by the privileged, but by the extent to which we ensure that those in need have their basic requirements met. It challenges common notions of success, urging a focus on equitable distribution and societal welfare, highlighting that helping those with less is a true measure of a communityβs advancement.
In practice
This quote can be used in a charity event speech to emphasize the importance of helping those in need.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
He realized now that a lot of the problem had been his own mind, which was usually moving at a speed ten or twenty times that of his classmates. They had thought him strange, weird, or even suicidal, depending on the escapade in question, but maybe it had been a simple case of mental overdrive-if anything about being in constant mental overdrive was simple. Anyway, it was the sort of thing you got under control after a while-you got it under control or you found outlets for it.
What you resist persists. And only what you look at, and own, can disappear. You make it disappear by simply changing your mind about it.
We were all fated to die, and so it is good that at least we can be sure our deaths today might bring about a good end, might make the world a better place.
Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.
Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe. .. We should not say 'I am an Athenian' or 'I am a Roman' but 'I am a citizen of the Universe.
Belief must be something different from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of precepts for one life or for two. Piety cannot be an instinct craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs.
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