It betrays a poverty of ambition if all you think about is what goods you can buy instead of what good you can do.
Barack Obama
Morehouse College Commencement 2013, 2013
Video beginnt bei 16:39 — der Moment, in dem dieses Zitat gesprochen wurde
Die Geschichte hinter diesem Zitat
Obama spoke directly to the graduating men of Morehouse — the historically Black college that produced Martin Luther King Jr. — about the tension between personal success and collective responsibility. He acknowledged the reality of student debt and the desire for material comfort, telling graduates that no one expected them to take a vow of poverty. But then he drew the line. The poverty that worried him wasn't financial — it was a poverty of vision. 'Go get that law degree,' he said, 'but ask yourself if the only option is to defend the rich and the powerful, or if you can also find some time to defend the powerless.' He applied the same logic to business, to medicine, to every profession — the question wasn't whether you made money, but whether your success served a broader purpose. 'The most successful CEOs I know didn't start out intent just on making money — rather, they had a vision of how their product or service would change things, and the money followed.'