We've learned that quiet isn't always peace and the norms and

Hear, O children of light, the stirring words of Amanda Gorman, the young poet who stood before her nation in a moment of division and declared: “We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice.” In her verse, spoken with the cadence of prophecy, she tore away the veil that so often deceives humankind—that silence is the same as harmony, and that tradition is the same as truth. Her words ring with the wisdom of ages: that peace must be authentic, not imposed, and that justice must be living, not stagnant.

What is quiet, if not sometimes the stillness of fear, the silence of the oppressed, the hush of voices forbidden to speak? Quiet may feel like calm, but it may be the calm of chains, the silence of the grave. True peace is not the absence of sound but the presence of fairness, dignity, and reconciliation. Gorman reminds us that to mistake silence for peace is to be blind to the cries of the unheard, the sufferings hidden beneath still waters. Quiet isn’t always peace.

And what of justice? The world has long been ruled by norms and notions of what just is—laws, traditions, customs, and habits accepted as the natural order. Yet not all that “is” is just. Slavery once was, segregation once was, the subjugation of women once was. These were norms, but they were not justice. Gorman warns that we must not confuse what has always been with what ought to be. Justice is not bound by tradition; it is bound by truth.

Consider the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement in America. For centuries, there was quiet in the land—an enforced silence where those suffering under discrimination had no platform, no power. Yet that quiet was no peace. It was only the mask of oppression. And the laws of the time, the so-called norms of “separate but equal,” were not justice, but injustice enshrined in policy. When voices like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and countless others rose to shatter the quiet, the truth was revealed: only through disruption, only through speaking against what “is,” could the nation take steps toward what is truly just.

So too across the world. The Indian independence movement, led by Mahatma Gandhi, showed the same truth. For decades, there was a fragile quiet under British rule, but it was not peace. It was submission maintained by power. And the empire’s laws, its “just is,” were not justice to those whose dignity and freedom were denied. It took courage to break the quiet, to question the norm, to declare that justice must rise higher than tradition. And when this truth prevailed, a new nation was born.

O children of tomorrow, learn well this wisdom: do not be deceived by appearances. Silence does not mean peace, and custom does not mean justice. True peace is built on fairness, and true justice requires constant questioning of what is accepted. The world changes, and with it, we must refine our vision of what is right. To cling to what “just is” without asking whether it is just, is to bow before false idols.

The lesson is radiant: peace requires courage, and justice requires vigilance. Do not be content with quiet if it is built on suppression. Do not be satisfied with norms if they trample dignity. Be willing to speak, to question, to challenge. In your communities, in your nations, in your own lives—ask always: does this silence serve peace, or does it hide injustice? Does this custom serve truth, or does it mask oppression? Let your conscience, not convention, guide you.

So let the words of Amanda Gorman echo like a song of awakening: “Quiet isn’t always peace, and what just is, isn’t always justice.” Take them as both warning and charge. Refuse false peace, refuse shallow justice. Build instead a world where peace is alive with fairness, and justice is vibrant with truth. For in such a world, silence will no longer be fear, but rest—and what “is” will finally be what is just.