Doing the Best We Can for the Cause of Justice—Plain Spoken Wisdom for Our Times

In the closing pages of his book, Segregation, Pulitzer prize recipient and Poet Laureate, Robet PennWarren offered this sober, plain spoken wisdom:

  “We have to deal with the problem our historical moment proposes, the burden of our time. We all live with a thousand unsolved problems of justice all the time…All we can do for posterity is to try to plug along in a way to make them think we—the old folks—did the best we could for justice, as we could understand it.” 

  I find  great realism and wisdom in this modest counsel.   It reeminds me of the words from the Talmud:  “We are not required to complete the task, but nor are we permitted to desist from it.”