Send forth a tiny ripple of hope.

Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.

I believe that as long as a single man may try, any unjustifiable barrier against his efforts is a barrier against mankind.

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.

Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.

It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.