Pearl S. Buck: Achieving the Impossible, Generation After Generation

Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) was a prolific American writer and humanitarian who earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938. The daughter of missionaries, Buck spent much of the first half of her life living in China, which became the setting for many of her more famous works. She later became a well-known activist for women’s rights and the advancement of minority groups. Buck’s name is often associated with the effort to remove racism and xenophobia from the adoption process. She co-founded the first international, interracial adoption agency in 1949.

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and so they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.”

Source: As quoted in An Apple for the Teacher: Fundamentals for Instructional Computing (1983) by George H. Culp and Herbert N. Nickles, p. 190; also in Youth Quake: A Manifesto (2002) by Cousin Sam, p. 31 [Wikiquote]