Thousand points of light

The phrase "a thousand points of light" was popularized by US president George H. W. Bush, and later formed the name of a private, non-profit organization launched by Bush to support volunteerism.

The term was used by George Bush in his speech accepting the presidential nomination at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans. Written for Bush by Peggy Noonan and Craig R. Smith, the address likened America's clubs and volunteer organizations to "a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky." Bush reprised the phrase near the end of his speech, affirming that he would "keep America moving forward, always forward—for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light."

He repeated the phrase in his inaugural address on January 20, 1989:

I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies. I will go to the people and the programs that are the brighter points of light, and I will ask every member of my government to become involved. The old ideas are new again because they are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.

A 1991 article in The New York Times noted that the phrase had inspired "a host of caustic political satires, including cartoons of devastated communities as 'a thousand points of blight.'"

In his book You Can't Go Home Again (1939), Thomas Wolfe lovingly describes the spirit of America saying, "It's your pasture now, and it's not so big--only three thousand miles from east to west, only two thousand miles from north to south--but all between, where ten thousand points of light prick out the cities, towns, and villages, there, seeker, you will find us burning in the night" (Wolfe 507). It was later repeated in C.S. Lewis's 1955 novel The Magician's Nephew, in which Lewis wrote: "One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out." In his 1946 science fiction short story, Rescue Party, Arthur C. Clarke describes an alien space craft racing to save humanity from the sun’s impending nova: “One entire wall of the control room was taken up by the screen, a great black rectangle that gave the impression of almost infinite depth. Three of Rugon’s slender control tentacles, useless for heavy work, but incredibly swift at all manipulation, flickered over the selector dials and the screen lit up with a thousand points of light." In 1917 H.G. Wells three times states in Mr. Britling Sees It Through variations of: "But never was the black fabric of war so threadbare. At a thousand points, the light is shining through."

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