Quotes About Impact

wanted to know how five years of Nazism followed by four and a half decades of Stalinism had affected this landscape and the people who inhabited it.

these costs total about $500 billion per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). More specifically, we estimate that childhood poverty each year: (1) reduces productivity and economic output by an amount equal to 1.3 percent of GDP, (2) raises the costs of crime by 1.3 percent of GDP, and (3) raises health expenditures and reduces the value of health by 1.2 percent of GDP.

These two types of equality are obviously related, because the distribution of income in one generation may affect the distribution of opportunity in the next generation—but they are not the same thing.

Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one person can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, misery, ignorance, and violence. Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And in the total of all those acts will be written the history of a generation.

My definition of literature would be just this: words that have become deeds.

There are two kinds of teachers—the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies." (I hope I am remembered as a prodder.)

And poems are all that matter. The utmost of ambition is to lodge a few poems where they will be hard to get rid of. –

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. –

Machines and relatives get most of the yelling. But never trees. As for people, well, the Solomon islanders may have a point. Yelling at living thing does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.

Never, ever regret or apologize for believing that when one man or one woman decides to risk addressing the world with truth, the world may stop what it is doing and hear. There is too much evidence to the contrary.

Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away.

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.

You know, without realizing it we fill important places in each other's lives.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts. . . .

Teachers want to know what difference they made in the lives of their pupils, and reunions are a great place to find out.

LAW 9 WIN THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NEVER THROUGH ARGUMENT JUDGMENT Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.

Learn the lesson: Once the words are out, you cannot take them back. Keep them under control. Be particularly careful with sarcasm: The momentary satisfaction you gain with your biting words will be outweighed by the price you pay.

Most people don't have the patience to absorb their minds in the fine points and minutiae that are intrinsically part of their work. They are in a hurry to create effects and make a splash; they think in large brush strokes. Their work inevitably reveals their lack of attention to detail - it doesn't connect deeply with the public, and it feels flimsy.

real action and true helpfulness are perhaps the ultimate charm.

Our continual connection to social media makes us prone to new forms of viral emotional effects. These are not media designed for calm reflection.

For what the leaders are, that, as a rule, will the men below them be. —Xenophon (430?–355? B.C.)

Power depends on appearing larger than other people

Express what others are afraid to express and they will see great power in you.

A British journalist once asked Mother Teresa how she kept going, knowing that she could never meet the needs of all the dying in the streets of Calcutta. She replied, "I am not called to be successful; I'm called to be faithful.