Lenny Skutnik – Herói por acaso
Lenny Skutnik jumped into the cold waters of the Potomac River to help rescue the survivors of an airplane crash…
Jesse Owens – The man who defeated a dictator
When Jesse Owens won, Hitler was conspicuously absent…
How adults learn from kids (dolphins example) – Scott Gass
“Take a cue from a dolphin and look to the kids around you for inspiration.”
Jawaharlal Nehru – Encontro com o destino (1947)
The speech was made to the Indian Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India’s Independence, towards midnight on 14th August 1947.
“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.
It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity…”
Harold Macmillan – “Wind of Change” in Africa (1960)
Harold Macmillan’s “wind of change” speech became a historical landmark. It was the first sign that the British government accepted that the days of Empire were over, and it dramatically speeded up the process of African independence.
It also marked the beginning of South Africa’s long spell out in the cold. Although Nationalist Party politicians reacted with outrage to the speech, and became even more entrenched, the speech brought international opposition to the apartheid system out into the open.
“… In the twentieth century, and especially since the end of the war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of Europe have been repeated all over the world. We have seen the awakening of national consciousness in peoples who have for centuries lived in dependence upon some other power. Fifteen years ago this movement spread through Asia. Many countries there, of different races and civilisations, pressed their claim to an independent national life.
Vaclav Havel – Mensagem de Ano Novo (1990)
“… In conclusion, I would like to say that I want to be a President who will speak less and work more…”
“… People, your government has returned to you!”
Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg Address (1863)
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Terry Fox – Uma maratona por dia com uma prótese
Terry Fox is one of the most famous athletes in Canadian history, and he wasn’t even a hockey player. That’s saying something.
After the British Columbia native lost his right leg to cancer in 1977 he decided that, if he was going to go on living, he was going to make a difference. So in 1980, Fox began what he called his Marathon of Hope—an attempt to raise money and awareness for cancer research by running all the way across Canada, 26 miles every day. Unfortunately, his cancer spread to his lungs, which forced Fox to suspect his Marathon of Hope after 143 days and 3,339 miles—but not before he inspired an entire country and became a national hero whose name is as well-known as Wayne Gretzky.
Rosa Parks – The “face” of the Civil Rights Mouvement (1955)
Because sometimes when you stand up for what you believe, you can change a nation…
Harvey Milk – Hope Speech (1978)
“I know that you can’t live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”
Somewhere in Des Moines or San Antonio there is a young gay person who all of a sudden realizes that he or she is gay; knows that if their parents find out they will be tossed out of the house, their classmates will taunt the child, and the Anita Bryant’s and John Briggs’ are doing their part on TV.
And that child has several options: staying in the closet, and suicide. And then one day that child might open the paper that says “Homosexual elected in San Francisco” and there are two new options: the option is to go to California, or stay in San Antonio and fight. Two days after I was elected I got a phone call and the voice was quite young. It was from Altoona, Pennsylvania. And the person said “Thanks”.
And you’ve got to elect gay people; so that thousands upon thousands like that child know that there is hope for a better world; there is hope for a better tomorrow. Without hope, not only gays, but those who are blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s; without hope the us’s give up.
I know that you can’t live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope.
pontodeviragem 