Popular quotes about Generations! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 59
Within this arena, which grows more stable night after day, generations work and love and hope and vanish. New generations tread on the corpses of their fathers, continue the work above the abyss and struggle to tame the dread mystery. How? By cultivating a single field, by kissing a woman, by studying a stone, an animal, an idea.
Nikos KazantzakisTo be an Irish poet after that 19th century in which there was such a struggle toward the light, I think still will always be in the hearts of the writers of my generation and the generations before and hopefully the generations after.
Eavan BolandNew generations have unprecedented power to make great changes. Take the music business for example. The new generations have toppled the music industry by file sharing, downloading, and Myspace. Rock 'n' roll belongs to the people.
Patti SmithA distant cousin sent me some genealogy report on my father's side, and it's sort of what I suspected. Coal miners for generations... four or maybe five generations.
Gina McKeeIn Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
Wilma MankillerA large animal needs a large area. If you protect that area, you're also protecting thousands of other plants and animals. You're saving all these species that future generations will want - you're saving the world for your children and your children's children. . . . The destruction of species is final. If you lose a species, you lose the genes, you lose all the potential drugs and potential foods that could be useful to the next generations. The ecosystems will not function as they have.
George SchallerOnce poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.
Muhammad YunusI believe the history of American music is just as important as anything political because it's changed generations of people.
Dave GrohlOur deep respect for the land and its harvest is the legacy of generations of farmers who put food on our tables, preserved our landscape, and inspired us with a powerful work ethic.
James H. DouglasGenerations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that luxury any more. The world has changed too much to let us have the lives our mothers had. And we can no longer afford the guilt we feel at not being our mothers. We cannot afford any guilt that pulls us back to the past. We have to grow up, whether we want to or not. We have to stop blaming men and mothers and seize every second of our lives with passion. We can no longer afford to waste our creativity. We cannot afford spiritual laziness.
Erica JongYou've got to have an ego as big as Mars to want to think that you, of all people, are better than anyone else to be president of the United States. People that vain, they want their place in history, and they want to be able to control how much they'll be worshipped by future generations.
Jello BiafraSpecifically, I am concerned about the long-term condition of Social Security. I am committed to ensuring that current beneficiaries and those nearing retirement face no reduction in benefits, while preserving this vital program for future generations.
Cliff StearnsThe very best reason parents are so special . . . is because we are the holders of a priceless gift, a gift we received from countless generations we never knew, a gift that only we now possess and only we can give to our children. That unique gift, of course, is the gift of ourselves. Whatever we can do to give that gift, and to help others receive it, is worth the challenge of all our human endeavor.
Fred RogersI am not doing any favour, only performing a duty; this victory is a result of struggle of five generations.
Narendra ModiFamily businesses that have been around for generations are suddenly closing their doors, and while I'm not comparing my situation or my family's situations to theirs, the fact that my father's business, which has been around for 30 years, might not be around, it gives me a perspective that makes me want to fight even harder for a lot of people.
Alexi GiannouliasThe martial spirit is never dead. It sleeps through fortunate generations, but it wakes up very quickly to the toot of a fife. There's that roistering spirit in men which leads them to think a good fight is a lark - until they've been in one. And the impulse to fight for your own incarnation of an ideal.
Margaret Ayer BarnesHow comes it to pass, if they be only moved by chance and accident, that such regular mutations and generations should be begotten by a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
John SmithIt is time for the next generations to continue our struggle against social injustice and for the rights of humanity. It is in your hands.
Nelson MandelaOut of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for those are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.
Thomas SowellI think, all in all, the Obama administration and what President Obama has focused on has lived up to our need to protect American interests, to live our values and assert our values, and to stand up for future generations.
John F. KerryWe have not inherited an easy world. If developments like the Industrial revolution, which began in England, and the gifts of science and technology have made life much easier for us, they have also made it more dangerous. There are threats now to our freedom, indeed to our very existence, that other generations could never even have imagined. There is first the threat of global war. No president, no Congress, no prime minister, no parliament can spend a day entirely free of this threat. If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.
Ronald ReaganBut we can do nothing for the human future that we will not do for the human present. For the amelioration of the future condition of our kind we must look, not to the wealth or the genius of the coming generations, but to the quality of the disciplines and attitudes that we are preparing now for their use.
Wendell BerryI often quote an African proverb that says: "The world is not ours, the earth is not ours, It's a treasure we hold in trust for future generations." And I often hope we will be worthy of that trust.
Kofi AnnanAnd so you [young Americans]need to be the Idea Generation. The generation who's always thinking on the cutting edge, who's wondering how to create and keep the next wave of American jobs and American innovations, who's figuring out how to out-compete the Idea Generations of Indias and Chinas of the world.
Barack ObamaIs the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?
David R. BrowerSocial Security is the foundation stone of that kind of retirement security. It not only needs to be strengthened in order to make sure it's there for younger baby boomers and Generations X and Y, but it probably needs to be strengthened and expanded because the retirement benefits now being offered by most employers are not sufficient to support middle-income Americans in their long years of retirement.
Hedrick SmithI think that I work hard to make my music as a diary for new generations who find out about it years later. They can go through the history and see a trail. It's straight and narrow, you can see the growth and understand that I'm not afraid to give you honesty and be honest about anything that has to do with my story.
Adrian MarcelWe seek a peaceful world, a prosperous world, a free world, a world of good neighbors, living on terms of equality and mutual respect, as Canada and the United States have lived for generations.
Harry S. TrumanI think we may be seeing the beginnings of a resurgence of civic-mindedness in this country. Hopefully the younger generations, which came out in record numbers during the last presidential election, will pass their enthusiasm on to their children.
Sandra Day O'ConnorCafeteria-style education, combined with the unwillingness of our schools to place demands on students, has resulted in a steady diminishment of commonly shared information between generations and between young people themselves.
Edward HirschI wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.
Daryl HallIt is essential to collectively struggle to recover our status as Daughters of the Earth. In that is our strength, and the security, not in the predator, but in the security of our Mother, for our future generations. In that we can insure our security as the Mothers of our Nations.
Winona LaDukeAlthough the United States lost a quarter of a million men and women, civilians and soldiers, in World War II, that's considerably less than the Russians lost in soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad alone. It's important to convey to countries and to people and to generations who have no experience of the 20th century as it was lived in Europe just how catastrophic it was.
Tony JudtWe are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late 80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred to global warming as a "slowmotion catastrophe" one we expected to kick in perhaps generations later. Instead, the signs of change have accelerated alarmingly.
David SuzukiYiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bear the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are the undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.
I. L. PeretzThe power of nonviolence is not circumstance-specific. It is as applicable to the problems that confront us now, as to problems that confronted generations in the past. It is not a medicine or a solution so much as a healing process. It is the active spiritual immune system of humanity.
Marianne WilliamsonDemography is changing us as we are older societies, we're living longer. How the generations balance each other out, how that affects education and health care.
Howard BakerI don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more ocean fronts filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?
Haruki MurakamiWe cannot predict the effects of our actions, especially our collective actions over generations or centuries, to use instrumental reasoning toward these big final ends to tell us what we ought to do.
Allen W. WoodGenerations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.
Chuck PalahniukI donโt know how to save the world. I donโt have the answers or The Answer. I hold no secret knowledge as to how to fix the mistakes of generations past and present. I only know that without compassion and respect for all of Earthโs inhabitants, none of us will surviveโnor will we deserve to.
Leonard PeltierAll human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined-those dead, those living, those generations yet to come-that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Dean KoontzThe term of life of a dynasty does not normally exceed three generations. For in the first generation are still preserved the characteristic features of rough, uncivilized rural life, such as hard conditions of life, courage, ferocity, and partnership in authority. Therefore the strength of the 'Asabiya is maintained.
Ibn KhaldunMost of us have achieved levels of affluence and comfort unthought of two generations ago. We've never had it so good, most of us. Nor have we ever complained so bitterly about our problems.
Mario CuomoAll it has experienced, tasted, suffered: The course of years, generations of animals, Oppression, recovery, friendship of sun and - Wind Will pour forth each day in the song Of its rustling foliage, in the friendly Gesture of its gently swaying crown, In the delicate sweet scent of resinous Sap moistening the sleep-glued buds, And the eternal game of lights and Shadows it plays with itself, content.
Hermann HesseWhere can we find greater structural clarity than in the wooden buildings of the old. Where else can we find such unity of material, construction and form? Here the wisdom of whole generations is stored. What feelings for material and what power of expression there is in these buildings! What warmth and beauty they have! They seem to be echoes of old songs.
Ludwig Mies van der RoheSometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like youโre the only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But youโre not! There are generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we have the benefit of their accumulated wisdom.
Jay Michaelson