Quotations on Hope

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“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”

                                                                               Barack Obama

 

(https://en.wikipedia.org)

“Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

                                                                               Stephen King

 

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

                                                                Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

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Quotations on Conscience

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“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

                                                         Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

(https://en.wikipedia.org)

“‘Atticus, you must be wrong.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong. . .’

‘They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,’ said Atticus, ‘but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.'”

                                          Harper Lee To Kill A Mockingbird

 

(https://en.wikipedia.org)

“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions”

                                                                          Lillian Hellman

 

 

Quotations on Taking A Stand

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“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

                                                                Martin Luther King Jr.

 

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“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

                                                                Albert Einstein

 

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“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

                                                                Elie Wiesel

Quotations on Hatred

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“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”

                                                          Maya Angelou

 

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

                                                          Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Hatred leads to bigotry, violence, and fascism. It is one of the great challenges of our contemporary world.”

                                                             Charles F. French

Quotations From A Generation of Lost Leaders

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“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

                                                                      John F. Kennedy

 

 

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“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

                                                            Martin Luther King Jr.

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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.

                                                                     Robert F. Kennedy

Quotations on Standing Up to Evil

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(Painting by Joshua Reynolds)

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

                                                                          Edmund Burke

 

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“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”

                                                                  Mahatma Gandhi

 

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

                                                                 Martin Luther King Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Remembered

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50 years ago today, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was a Senator and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U. S. Presidency.  The 1960s, and especially 1968, were a time of great turmoil in our country and the world. Robert Kennedy was a man who had grown into a compassionate and powerful liberal figure, one who offered hope to a divided country in despair.

RFK had won the primary in California and seemed poised to win the nomination, which would have made him a powerful candidate to become President.  Then his life was brutally ended, and the country lost possibilities.

Like his brother, President John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he would be killed, and America would lose great potential for change and decency. I was a young teenager when this happened, and I remember feeling a terrible sense of loss and grief. As I grew older, I would realize just what the country lost.

I end with a quotation from his campaign, which was based on the earlier quotation from George Bernard Shaw. In his speech at the University of Kansas
March 18, 1968  RFK said:

“George Bernard Shaw once wrote,

‘Some people see things as they are and say why? I

dream things that never were and say, why not?'”

                                                               (Robert F. Kennedy)

Senator Ted Kennedy spoke of his brother at his funeral and said,

“My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” (Edward Kennedy)

I hope we, as a  nation, can remember Robert F. Kennedy’s sense of optimism and justice and that we move towards a just and inclusive society. We must think of what might be.

 

Works Cited

“Edward M. Kennedy Address at the Public Memorial Service for Robert F. Kennedy.”

American Rhetoric Top 100 Speeches. Online. http://www.americanrhetoric.com

/speeches/ekennedytributetorfk.html.

 

“Robert F. Kennedy Speeches Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968.” John

      F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.  Online.  https://www.jfklibrary.org

/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Robert-

F-Kennedy-at-the-University-of-Kansas-March-18-1968.aspx.