The Most Interesting Era

My grandfather (born 1892) said this. He was indeed a very wise man.

"I have lived in the most interesting times a man could live. I have seen people go from travelling by horse and buggy to seeing a rocket take a man to the moon so that he could walk there, a feat held as impossible for much of my life. I have seen horrible diseases — ones that have killed or crippled millions over the centuries — identified and eradicated, and the pace of medical discoveries gets ever quicker.

"What I have seen that does not delight me is that we now can kill one another faster and in greater numbers than ever, and seem to take a sort of perverse glee in doing so, as if counting the dead is the best measure of our progress. If only we could find it in ourselves to work and create ways to feed and care for the unfortunate in such great numbers. That, young man, is the charge of your generation."

Sadly, his directive from the 70's remains unfulfilled.