Making a difference

Last week A Word A Day had this thought:

"Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind, you have failed."
-Jan de Hartog, playwright and novelist (1914-2002)

This reminds me of the story of the starfish. It is easy to recognize that we are limited human beings and not able to solve world hunger. But there are many places we can make a difference in the life of an individual. It is worth making the effort.


I enjoy the quotes from the A Word A Day as much as the words. My original purpose in joining the mailing list was to get the quotes. Many of these quotes are from people I have not heard of before.

Jan de Hartog sounds like an interesting man. He was born in Holland. He escaped Nazi occupied Germany, lived in the UK during the war, and then settled in the United States. He always considered himself Dutch. He wrote many stories, mostly about the Dutch at sea. I'm going to check out my library, and I expect to read one of his books.


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