Quotes from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“When it is time for you to leave this school, leave your job, or even leave this earth, you make sure you have worked hard to make sure it mattered you were even here.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“I sat back, allowing Wes's words to sink in. Then I responded, "I guess it's hard sometimes to distinguish between second chances and last chances.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better." (quoted from Samuel Buckett)... Failing does not make us a failure. But not trying to do better, to be better, does make us fools.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Life’s impermanence, I realized, is what makes every single day so precious. It’s what shapes our time here. It’s what makes it so important that not a single moment be wasted.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“The common bond of humanity and decency that we share is stronger than any conflict, any adversity. Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount. Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom. Ubuntu was right.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“The common bond of humanity and decency that we share is stronger than any conflict, any adversity, any challenge. Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount. Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“-After all this pain and heartache, how are you now able to forgive? You seem so at peace with yourself and your life. How are you so able to move on?...
-Because Mr. Mandela asked us to.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Failing doesn't make us a failure. But not trying to do better, to be better, does make us fools.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“I realized then how difficult it is to separate the two. The expectations that others place on us help us form our expectations of ourselves.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“I guess it’s hard sometimes to distinguish between second chances and last chances.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“But there was a more recent author and public figure whose work spoke to the core of a new set of issues I was struggling with: the Bronx's own Colin Powell. His book, My American Journey, helped me harmonize my understanding of America's history and my aspiration to serve her in uniform. In his autobiography he talked about going to the Woolworth's in Columbus, Georgia, and being able to shop but not eat there. He talked about how black GIs during World War II had more freedoms when stationed in Germany than back in the country they fought for. But he embraced the progress this nation made and the military's role in helping that change to come about. Colin Powell could have been justifiably angry, but he wasn't. He was thankful. I read and reread one section in particular:

The Army was living the democratic ideal ahead of the rest of America. Beginning in the fifties, less discrimination, a truer merit system, and leveler playing fields existed inside the gates of our military posts more than in any Southern city hall or Northern corporation. The Army, therefore, made it easier for me to love my country, with all its flaws, and to serve her with all of my heart." -The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (p. 131)”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“But what all these responses have in common is that they point to the decisive power of information and stories [...]”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“...I found myself surrounded by people--starting with my mom, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, and leading to a string of wonderful role models and mentors--who kept pushing me to see more than what was directly in front of me, to see the boundless possibilities of the wider world and the unexplored possibilities within myself. People who taught me that no accident of birth--not being black or relatively poor, being from Baltimore or the Bronx or fatherless--would ever define or limit me.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“I hear you, but it's not the process you should focus on; it's the joy you will feel after you go through the process." - Zinzi (pg170)The Other Wes Moore”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“I was taught to remember, but never question. Wes was taught to forget, and never ask why. We learned our lessons well and were showing them off to a tee. We sat there, just a few feet from each other, both silent, pondering an absence.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Later in life I learned that the way many governors projected the numbers of beds they’d need for prison facilities was by examining the reading scores of third graders. Elected officials deduced that a strong percentage of kids reading below their grade level by third grade would be needing a secure place to stay when they got older.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Wes didn't think Tony was a hypocrite exactly--he knew why his brother felt obliged to warn him off. But it was clear that Tony didn't have any better ideas or he would've made those moves himself.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“In the United States, we see these same faces, and our reflex is to pick up our pace and cross the street. And in this reflexive gesture, the dimensions of our tragedy are laid bare.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Wes wanted to be just like Tony. Tony wanted Wes to be nothing like him.”
― Wes Moore, quote from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

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Popular quotes

“It only took one mistake, one stupid decision”
― Siobhan Vivian, quote from Not That Kind of Girl

“The first assurance he has won is this: ‘If there is another world, and if good and bad deeds bear fruit and yield results, it is possible that with the breakup of the body, after death, I shall arise in a good destination, in a heavenly world.’ “The second assurance he has won is this: ‘If there is no other world, and if good and bad deeds do not bear fruit and yield results, still right here, in this very life, I live happily, free of enmity and ill will. “The third assurance he has won is this: ‘Suppose evil befalls the evil-doer. Then, as I do not intend evil for anyone, how can suffering afflict me, one who does no evil deed?’ “The fourth assurance he has won is this: ‘Suppose evil does not befall the evil-doer. Then right here I see myself purified in both respects.”
― Bhikkhu Bodhi, quote from In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon

“agents shall be recruited from orphans. They shall be trained in the following techniques: interpretation of signs and marks, palmistry and similar techniques of interpreting body marks, magic and illusions, the duties of the ashramas, the stages of life, and the science of omens and augury. Alternatively, they can be trained in physiology and sociology, the art of men and society.”
― Tarquin Hall, quote from The Case of the Missing Servant

“For that entire journey across the rough terrain of Afghanistan, I never stopped praying that everything of the world could be peaceful, that all lives might return to normal. I believe that wish is universal for every woman who is a mother.

For all the horrible happenings that have occurred since I left Afghanistan, I can only think and feel with my mother's heart. For every child lost, a mother's heart harbors the deepest pain. None can see our sons grow to men. None can see our daughters become mothers. No longer can we see the smiles on their faces, or wipe away their tears. My mother's heart feels the pain of every loss, weeping not only for my children, but for the lost children of every mother.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World

“Ignorance has never been the problem. The problem was and continues to be unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity. And arrogance. Perhaps it is unfair to judge the past by the present, but it is also necessary.

If nothing else, an examination of the past—and of the present, for that matter—can be instructive. It shows us that there is little shelter and little gain for Native peoples in doing nothing. So long as we possess one element of sovereignty, so long as we possess one parcel of land, North America will come for us, and the question we have to face is how badly we wish to continue to pursue the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. How important is it for us to maintain protected communal homelands? Are our traditions and languages worth the cost of carrying on the fight? Certainly the easier and more expedient option is simply to step away from who we are and who we wish to be, sell what we have for cash, and sink into the stewpot of North America.

With the rest of the bones.

No matter how you frame Native history, the one inescapable constant is that Native people in North America have lost much. We’ve given away a great deal, we’ve had a great deal taken from us, and, if we are not careful, we will continue to lose parts of ourselves—as Indians, as Cree, as Blackfoot, as Navajo, as Inuit—with each generation. But this need not happen. Native cultures aren’t static. They’re dynamic, adaptive, and flexible, and for many of us, the modern variations of older tribal traditions continue to provide order, satisfaction, identity, and value in our lives. More than that, in the five hundred years of European occupation, Native cultures have already proven themselves to be remarkably tenacious and resilient.

Okay.

That was heroic and uncomfortably inspirational, wasn’t it? Poignant, even. You can almost hear the trumpets and the violins. And that kind of romance is not what we need. It serves no one, and the cost to maintain it is too high.

So, let’s agree that Indians are not special. We’re not … mystical. I’m fine with that. Yes, a great many Native people have a long-standing relationship with the natural world. But that relationship is equally available to non-Natives, should they choose to embrace it. The fact of Native existence is that we live modern lives informed by traditional values and contemporary realities and that we wish to live those lives on our terms.”
― Thomas King, quote from The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America

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