Living the life of a daredevil

Last article in Shanti’s series, where he quotes under the section, Fragrances of human flowering, personalities from various fields

Claudette Colvin

African-American activist and pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement

“I always tell young people to hold on to their dreams. And sometimes you have to stand up for what you think is right, even if you have to stand alone.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter…There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

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

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

“If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

“The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”

“There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a large segment of people in that society who feel that they have no stake in it.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau

oceanographer

“If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.”

“However fragmented the world, however intense the national rivalries, it is an inexorable fact that we become more interdependent every day.”

“I believe that national sovereignties will shrink in the face of universal interdependence.”

“It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.”

Greta Thunberg

environmental activist

“If a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to. But to do that, we have to speak clearly, no matter how uncomfortable that may be…”

“We all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations. Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail… I have learned you are never too small to make a difference.”

Amelia Earhart

aviator

“Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.”

“A single act of kindness throws our roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.”

Junko Tabei

mountaineer

“Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top; it is the willpower that is the most important. This willpower you cannot buy with money or be given by others… it rises from your heart.”

Alexandra David-Néel

explorer and writer

“I craved to go beyond the garden gate,
to follow the road that passed it by,
and to set out for the Unknown.”

“Who knows the flower best?
The one who reads about it in a book,
or the one who finds it wild on the mountainside?”

“To the one who knows how to look and feel,
every moment of the free wandering life is an enchantment.”

Fridtjof Nansen

explorer, historian, scientist, diplomat and humanitarian

“If nations could overcome the mutual fear and distrust, whose sombre shadow is now thrown over the world, and could meet with confidence and good will to settle their possible differences, they would easily be able to establish a lasting peace.”

“The difficult is what takes a little time. The impossible is what takes a little longer.”

Rusty Schweickart

astronaut

“What it is you identify with begins to shift. When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognise that your identity is with that whole thing.”

“As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we’ve created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports.”

Ferdinand Magellan

navigator and explorer

“The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.”

“The sea is awful and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore.”

Charles Lindbergh

aviator

“Civilization must be based on life. We should never forget that human life was created in and for millions of centuries, was nourished by primitive wildness. We cannot separate ourselves from this ancestral background.”

My wish at the end of this series:

May we all decide to flower in our own way and release our unique fragrance back to existence.

Thank you for reading ‘Humans Are Still Young’,

Shanti