I think a lot of us are not on a path; we're in a rut. We have confused comfort with peace, belief with faith, safety with wisdom, wealth with blessing, and existence with life.
Erwin McmanusRead
Would you be willing to give your life to save the world if no one ever knew your name? If anonymity was the price you would have to pay for significance, would it be too great a price? To live a life of courage is not a guarantee of prestige or adulation. It only matters if you live and die fulfilling the mission you were born for.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True fulfillment comes from living purposefully, regardless of recognition.
This quote emphasizes the importance of living a life of courage and purpose, suggesting that one should be willing to make significant sacrifices for the greater good, even if those actions go unrecognized. It challenges the notion that personal significance requires public acknowledgment, asserting that the true measure of a life well-lived is adherence to one's mission and values, rather than seeking fame or validation from others.
Themes
CourageSignificanceAnonymitySacrificePurpose
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal courage and sacrifice.
More from Erwin Mcmanus
All quotes →Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are most fully alive. Home is about love, relationship, community, and belonging, and we are all searching for home.
Erwin McmanusRead
There are few things more powerful than a life lived with passionate clarity.
Erwin McmanusRead
The future awaits those with the courage to create it.
Erwin McmanusRead
Deeper than our instinct to live is our longing to be alive.
Erwin McmanusRead
Far too often, when we think we are frightened by mystery, the fact is that we are haunted by history.
Erwin McmanusRead
Similar quotes
The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
You feel the shame, humiliation, and anger at being just another victim of prejudice, and at the same time, there's the nagging worry that maybe... you're just no good.
Nina SimoneRead
That's been the story of my life - obstacles: trying to figure a way over them, around them, under them; sometimes you have to go straight through them.
Booker TRead
A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle,and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor.At a point, one can only fight fire with fire
Nelson MandelaRead
In many ways, my decision to come out changed the course not only of my personal life but of my professional one as well.
George TakeiRead
Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
John DickinsonRead