If you try to please everyone, two things happen. First, you become nondescript. Unnoticeable. You fade into the background. And second — heed this — you will fail. Do you understand? You won’t please everyone, even if you try mightily. So, do this: stand for your values. Speak plainly, openly, without timidity. Tremble if you must. Your voice may quiver sometimes. But it will not be timidity. It will be the courage to overcome all fear, to face any opposition, to be yourself in a world that prefers you be invisible. Be gracious. Be a model of dignity and respect. But do not be silent. Complacency is the fertile soil for evil’s growth. Do you know what grows when you are not complacent — when you speak out — when you stand for all that is good and right? Courage. Courage grows. Courage grows in the people around you, the people who are timid, the ones who believe as you do, who feel as you do, but who have not yet found their voice. When you stand up and speak out, you find your true friends, and you give them strength, and courage, and a voice.
Stand.
Speak.
