This I Believe
This I Believe
A Public Speaking Minimester Project
A Public Speaking Minimester Project
This I Believe was originally a five-minute program hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow from 1951 to 1955 on CBS Radio. The show encouraged both famous and everyday people to write short essays about their own personal motivation in life and then read them on the air. At NPR, This I Believe engaged listeners in a discussion of the core beliefs that guide their daily lives. We heard from people of all walks of life — the very young and the very old, the famous and the previously unknown, Nobel laureates, teachers, prison inmates, students, politicians, farmers, poets, entrepreneurs, activists and executives.
Murrow had one essential requirement for the writers: "confine yourself to affirmatives." "I believe in not holding grudges" should be expressed as "I believe in second chances."
Our statements hold themselves to the same standard.
It is not the critic who counts--not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the [person] who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.
-Theodore Roosevelt from “Citizenship in a Republic”