“The world is one lifeboat in a sea of stars; there is no cause for joy if our end is sound while the other end is sinking.”
In 1975, Sargent Shriver gave an Address to the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. In it, he made the point that human beings yearn deeply for three seemingly contradictory things: independence, unity, and transcendence. He spoke eloquently about how all of these yearnings work together and how they have impacted our history. He also stressed that building peace and ending poverty would allow us to fulfill these deep yearnings, so that we could live freely while acknowledging our fundamental interconnectedness. To illustrate these powerful points, he used a poetic metaphor for the world as a lifeboat in a sea of stars, which we have chosen as our Quote of the Week.
Like this quote? Read the speech and subscribe to receive our Quote of the Week by email.
