If what is communicated is false, it can hardly be called communication.
Category Archive: Benjamin E. Mays
It isn’t a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.
The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.
It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.
Many well-meaning intelligent people have argued since the May 17, 1954, decision of the United States Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the public schools that communication between the races has broken down.
For nearly a century, the South made itself believe that Negroes and white people were really communicating. So convinced of this were the white Southerners that they almost made the nation believe that they, and only they, knew the mind of the Southern Negro.
It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture.
It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.