Quotes & Poems for School Leavers Assemblies
Categories: Secondary, 16+, Blog, Curricular, Assemblies
Quotes
‘The future depends on what we do in the present’ - Mahatma Gandhi
‘Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.’ - Tom Krause
‘Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.’ - Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
‘Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.’ - Herman Cain
‘How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.’ - Anne Frank
‘If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.’ - Mother Teresa
‘Jesus said love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world.’ - Mother Teresa
‘we must be determined to run the race that is ahead of us’ - Hebrews 12:1
Poems
‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.’ - Marianne Williamson
Prayers
‘Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.’ - Sir Francis Drake -1577
‘May God bless you with discomfort…
at easy answers, hard hearts,
half-truths ,and superficial relationships.
May God bless you so that you may live
from deep within your heart
where God’s Spirit dwells.
May God bless you with anger…
at injustice, oppression,
and exploitation of people.
May God bless you so that you may
work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears…
to shed for those who suffer from pain,
rejection, starvation and war.
May God bless you so that you
may reach out your hand
to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with
enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference
in this world, in your neighborhood,
so that you will courageously try
what you don’t think you can do, but,
in Jesus Christ you’ll have all the strength necessary.
May God bless you that you remember
we are all called
to continue God’s redemptive work
of love and healing
in God’s place, in and through God’s name,
in God’s Spirit, continually creating
and breathing new life and grace
into everything and everyone we touch.’
And finally, the ‘Lost Generation’ Youtube video:
