Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world.

In the stirring voice of a man who believed in the power of hope and humanity, Tommy Douglas once declared: “Courage, my friends; ’tis not too late to build a better world.” These words, though simple in form, carry the weight of centuries — a call to rise, to persevere, and to renew faith in the goodness of humankind. They echo like a hymn from the heart of every era when despair threatened to silence the dreamers. For Douglas, as for all visionaries who came before him, courage was not the absence of fear, but the fire that pushes us forward even when the night seems endless.

Tommy Douglas, known as the father of Canada’s universal health care system, spoke these words during a time when the world was trembling with change. The Great Depression had left scars upon the spirit of nations, and the Second World War had revealed both the depths of cruelty and the heights of compassion possible in the human soul. In those dark and uncertain years, Douglas did not merely preach reform — he lived it. He saw hunger, he saw suffering, and he refused to believe that society must accept them as fate. His words were not born of rhetoric, but of experience — the hard, enduring faith that no matter how broken the present may seem, the future can still be built anew.

When Douglas said, “Courage, my friends,” he was addressing all who had grown weary — those whose hope had been battered by injustice, those who had lost faith in change, those who feared that the world had already slipped too far into darkness. But his next words — “’tis not too late to build a better world” — were an invocation of renewal, a reminder that time itself is a servant of the brave. For as long as there is breath in the body, it is never too late to begin again. The world, Douglas believed, is not something given to us finished and perfect; it is something we are forever shaping, forever repairing, forever redeeming.

The ancients, too, understood this truth. When the Greek city-states lay divided, Pericles spoke of the duty of citizens to rise above fear and act for the common good. When the Roman Republic fell to corruption, Cicero urged men to hold fast to justice even when surrounded by decay. And when the world of the Middle Ages seemed swallowed by ignorance, Francis of Assisi walked into the ruins and began to rebuild with his own hands. So it is in every age: when despair grows thick as fog, a voice rises to say, “Courage, my friends.” It is this eternal cry that keeps civilization from collapsing into itself.

Consider the life of Nelson Mandela, who, though imprisoned for twenty-seven years, never lost his faith in a better South Africa. When he finally walked free, he did not return with vengeance, but with forgiveness. His courage was not loud, but steady — the kind that burns quietly through long nights of suffering. Like Douglas, he proved that a single person’s unwavering belief in goodness can alter the course of history. His life, like the quote itself, reminds us that to build a better world, one must first believe it is still possible to do so — even when others do not.

Douglas’s message also carries a hidden wisdom: that courage is contagious. When one soul dares to stand firm, others find their strength awakened. The better world he speaks of is not constructed by rulers alone, but by the joined hands of ordinary people — teachers, laborers, dreamers, healers — who refuse to give up. Courage spreads like light through the cracks of despair, igniting communities, nations, and generations. To build a better world is not to wait for heroes, but to become one, quietly, in the way you live, love, and labor.

Let this, then, be the teaching drawn from his words: do not surrender to despair, for every moment is a seed of renewal. Each act of kindness, each stand for justice, each small deed of courage contributes to the architecture of the better world we long for. When cynicism whispers that it is too late, answer as Douglas did — with faith in the possible. Begin where you are: mend a wound, lift a spirit, speak truth where silence reigns. These are the stones with which a new world is built.

So, my children of tomorrow, remember this ancient lesson dressed in modern words: Courage, my friends; ’tis not too late. As long as hearts still beat and hands still build, the world can yet be healed. No empire, no failure, no darkness is final. Every dawn begins with the courage to rise once more. And if we, like Tommy Douglas, carry this courage within us — fierce, humble, and enduring — then the work of building a better world shall never truly end.