'If we believe that humanity can transcend tooth and claw, if we believe that divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Tortuous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword. // A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living:' (p.528)
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The speaker believes a just and equitable world is possible but hard to achieve, and dedicating life to shaping it for future generations is meaningful.
- In plain terms
- A better world is hard to make but worth working for so the next generation inherits it.
- What can you take from it?
- Working toward a just world gives life purpose despite the difficulty.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What world do you want to leave?
- Is hope realistic or naive?
Another view
Hope can overlook systemic barriers that make change nearly impossible.
More from David Mitchell
'One fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself: In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction…
Permalink to quote #15 'I hear my father-in-law's response: 'Naive, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his fa…
Permalink to quote #17 'History has no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts and virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.' ?( p.528)
Permalink to quote #14
Related quotes
It is not quite the same when we are seventy-two as when we are twenty-seven; still I am glad of what is left, and wish we might both hold out till the victory…
Lucy StoneLucy Stone quote #12 What good is life unless you give it away - unless you give it for a better world, even if you never see that world but have only carried your grain to the bui…
Penny LernouxPenny Lernoux quote #8 I named my new son James Joseph Brown II. I think he's going to be a lot better than I was.
James BrownJames Brown quote #17