Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Interpretation
One should strive to achieve something meaningful before leaving this world.
Horace Mannβs quote encourages individuals to dedicate their lives toward achieving victories that benefit humanity. It suggests that personal accomplishments should not come at the expense of broader social contributions, and emphasizes the importance of making a positive impact before one's time is up.
In practice
This quote can be used in a graduation speech to inspire graduates to pursue impactful careers.
Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science.
There may be frugality which is not economy. A community, that withholds the means of education from its children, withholds the bread of life and starves their souls.
Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.
Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.
Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate.
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
Everybody accuses me of moving fast when I direct a picture. I don't move fast, but I just keep moving.
Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
I'm the hero of this story, I don't need to be saved
What you persist in doing gets easier. The task hasn't changed, but your ability to do it has increased.
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