2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.
“We have lost our moral compass completely, and unless we find it, we’re going to lose our civilization.”
Context: There is an extraordinary silence in the West. Basically, Christianity in the Middle East and in Africa is being wiped out – I mean not just ideologically but physically, and people are being enslaved and killed because they are Christians. And your country and my country (Wales) are doing nothing about it.... This is a unique age. We don't want to be judgmental. Every other age that's come before us has believed exactly the opposite. I mean, T. S. Eliot referred to 'the common pursuit of true judgement.' Yes, that's what it's about. Getting our judgments right, getting them accurate.... We have lost our moral compass completely, and unless we find it, we’re going to lose our civilization. I think we're going to lose Western European Christian civilization anyway.
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John Rhys-Davies 5
Welsh actor 1944Related quotes
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Context: A wonderful chemist, Svante Arrhenius, in 1896, explained, actually, how things would unfold as CO2 rose in the atmosphere. The quantum mechanics have been understood, the basic dynamics have been understood, for many, many decades. One of my colleagues testified in US Congress, almost got it to precision, what would happen over the next 30 years. The fact of the matter is, now we’re in it. We’re in the midst of horrendous danger, and it’s unfolding before our eyes, and still we are not acting. And the reason we’re not acting is big money and big companies, and it’s complete dishonesty. And I would add your Mr Rupert Murdoch, who has made a mess of the media all over the world, by propounding nonsense in the tabloids and our Fox News, in the Wall Street Journal, telling lies at the service of the oil industry
“We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.”
The Irony of American History (1952)
Context: We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.