Come on now all you young men, all over the world. You are needed more than ever now to fill the gap of a generation shorn by the War. You have not an hour to lose. You must take your places in life's fighting line. Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Don't be content with things as they are. 'The earth is yours and the fulness thereof'. Enter upon your inheritance, accept your responsibilities. Raise the glorious flags again, advance them upon the new enemies, who constantly gather upon the front of the human army, and have only to be assaulted to be overthrown. Don't take No for an answer. Never submit to failure.
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Question
What do you need to believe in order to get through the day?
Values & belief
Question
What are you still hoping to finish?
Death & what remains
Question
What have you come to understand about what it means to be human?
Values & belief
Question
What problem are you still trying to solve?
Craft & work
Question
What is your favourite side project?
Craft & work
Question
What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it?
Failure & regret
The advice I would give any young person is, first of all, to rid themselves of prejudice against other people and to be concerned about what they can do to help others. And of course, to get a good education, and take advantage of the opportunities that they have. In fact, there are more opportunities today than when I was young.
Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 2 June 1995 source ↗
Others on this question
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Winston Churchill
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964
Recorded
Chapter of his autobiography, written at Chartwell in 1930, Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life (Thornton Butterworth, 1930), Project Gutenberg Canada, October 1930
source ↗
Richard Ford
Novelist and short-story writer
Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Founder and executive chairperson of Biocon
One day, I spoke to him about my sense of shame. He looked me in the eyes and told me that brewing was a science; it was not about getting drunk. He did not stop there. He said: 'Do not make judgment on things, people, and issues with half information.' He said there is truth in everything you see around. So, look for everything in its entirety. That was a game-changing moment for me.
Abby Wambach
United States international footballer, 2001–2015
I stayed on the path out of fear, not of being eaten by a wolf, but of being cut, being benched, losing my paycheck. If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing it would be this: "Abby, you were never Little Red Riding Hood; you were always the wolf."
Recorded
Barnard College commencement address, Radio City Music Hall, New York, Speakola, 16 May 2018
source ↗
More from Rosa Parks
View profile →I try to not think of those things that we cannot control, but I think if we continue to work with positive attitudes, conditions will be better for more people.
I would have to take longer than a minute to give my whole synopsis of my life, but I want to let you know that all of us should be free and equal and have equal opportunity and that is what I’m trying to instill and encourage and inspire young people to reach their highest potential.
There were so many needs for us to continue to work for freedom, because I didn’t think that we should have to be treated in the way we were, just for the sake of white supremacy, because it was designed to make them feel superior, and us feel inferior. That was the whole plan of racially enforced segregation.
We still have a long way to go, we still have many obstacles and many challenges to face. It’s far from perfect, and it may never be, but I think as long as we do the best we can to improve conditions, then people will be benefited.
We work with young people, from the ages of 11 to 17. Our main program is the Pathways to Freedom. And we’ll be going from Memphis, Tennessee through ten other states, and Washington, DC, and to Canada. It began July 13th and ends August 8th. We hope to take as many young people and their chaperons as possible throughout these areas, and stop and have workshops and programs. They’ll be traveling in buses, and we hope that will inspire and give them a sense of history and also to encourage them to be concerned about their self and history and motivated to reach their highest potential.
Back in Montgomery during my growing up there, it was completely legally enforced racial segregation, and of course, I struggled against it for a long time. I felt that it was not right to be deprived of freedom when we were living in the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free. Of course, when I refused to stand up, on the orders of the bus driver, for a white passenger to take the seat, and I was not sitting in the front of the bus, as so many people have said, and neither was my feet hurting, as many people have said. But I made up my mind that I would not give in any longer to legally-imposed racial segregation and of course my arrest brought about the protests for more than a year.
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