Mahatma Ghandi, the Indian peace activist, and political force for change made a lot of sense, but never more so than when he said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Ghandi was a gentle man, though intensely determined, but what he did see was that education was the way forward, in any society, and in any generation, and just those few words demonstrate his eternal wisdom.
We can underestimate the supportive power of a touch, the encouragement of a smile, the reassurance of a listening ear, the feel-good factor in a heartfelt compliment, the care-factor in an insignificant act of generosity, but the inspiration behind well-thought words and phrases can drive us for life, offer meaning, and even to change lives.
Something inspired me to look at some of the best quotes, inspirational and otherwise, as each in their own way inspires us to be better. An unattributed quote reads, “The true mark of maturity is when someone hurts you, and you try to understand their situation instead of trying to hurt them back.”
This is a dogma that so many would do well to try to embrace. We have all been in situations where we reflect later we ‘should have counted to ten,’ and regretted the sharpest of words or reactions, however those world leaders, politicians and activists who do have the opportunity to reflect, and
still talk conflict, are our generation’s greatest failures.
A genius mathematician, and a worldly philosopher, was Albert Einstein, and his utterance on the inability of many of us to see the potential in others, of our haste in pigeonholing people, and not letting, or encouraging them to be all they can be, saying “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid!” How right, and the worst thing is that we’re all guilty of it.
We hear lots from John Lennon, ex-Beatle and musical visionary, whose song for peace ‘Imagine’ has some of the most heart rending lyrics you will ever hear. Yet, his mother must have had a few brains too, as Lennon recalled “When I was five years old, my mother told me happiness was the key to life. So when I went to school and they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote ‘happy.’
They said I didn’t understand the question, but they didn’t understand life.” Maybe it’s looking at life through rose-coloured glasses a wee bit, but
there is a ton of merit in Mrs Lennon’s vision for her son.
William Ward was a relatively obscure American author of the mid-20th Century, yet he stripped bare those who have the wrong impression of leadership skills writing, “Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination, on cooperation not intimidation.” Far too many assume positions of leadership assuming they are special, assuming they have carte blanche to dominate and intimidate, however history, morality and behavioural studies all emphatically reject hierarchies in favour of consultative business management models.
My all-time favourites though, concern truth and lies. My dad passed away earlier this year and I miss him like heck, and to use another’s words, “He didn’t tell me how to live; He lived, and let me watch,” but he always said, “Tell the truth son, because you’ve got to have a perfect memory to be a good liar!” He wasn’t perfect by any means, my dad, but that is true, succinct, and simple to remember, while the other is a commercial offering that you can assess the merits of for yourself. “A lie gets halfway around the world, before the truth gets its pants on!”
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