2010s, Farewell Speech (2017)
Context: !-- So the young people here and the young people out there: --> Do not ever let anyone make you feel like you don't matter, or like you don't have a place in our American story — because you do. And you have a right to be exactly who you are.
But I also want to be very clear: This right isn't just handed to you. No, this right has to be earned every single day. You cannot take your freedoms for granted. Just like generations who have come before you, you have to do your part to preserve and protect those freedoms. And that starts right now, when you're young.
Right now, you need to be preparing yourself to add your voice to our national conversation. You need to prepare yourself to be informed and engaged as a citizen, to serve and to lead, to stand up for our proud American values and to honor them in your daily lives. And that means getting the best education possible so you can think critically, so you can express yourself clearly, so you can get a good job and support yourself and your family, so you can be a positive force in your communities.
“But there are forces that don't let you turn back and undo things, because to do so would be to deny what is already in motion, to unwrite and erase passages, to shorten the arc of a story you don't own.”
Source: The People of Paper
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Salvador Plascencia 5
American writer 1976Related quotes
“Don't let things you can't do stop you from doing things you can.”
Dialogue between Russell and his daughter Katharine, as quoted in My Father – Bertrand Russell (1975)
Attributed from posthumous publications
“What you don't do can be a destructive force.”
“Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
Variant: Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
“If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.”
Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
Post Reporter's Pulitzer Prize Is Withdrawn; Pulitzer Board Withdraws Post Reporter's Prize (19 April 1981)