Benjamin Elijah Mays (1894–1984) was a United States minister, educator, scholar, social activist and the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia from 1940 to 1967. Mays was also a significant mentor to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and was among the most articulate and outspoken critics of segregation before the rise of the modern civil rights movement in the United States.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Benjamin Mays
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 goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin.
—Benjamin Mays
Topics: Aspirations, Goals, Life, Tragedy
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
George Boardman the Younger American Baptist Minister
Thomas Wentworth Higginson American Reformer, Editor
Connie Zweig American Minister
Russell Conwell American Baptist Minister
Thomas Starr King American Unitarian Minister
Charles L. Allen American Methodist Minister
Scudder Parker American Minister
Charles Sheldon American Christian Minister
Bernice Johnson Reagon American Singer
Martin Luther King, Jr. American Civil Rights Leader