The Paradoxical Commandments

Sometimes ripples take time to spread. Written in the turbulent sixties, when student activists were seizing buildings, throwing rocks at police and shouting down opponents, Kent Keith’s Paradoxical Commandments provided an alternative voice. Kent wrote them as a booklet for high school leaders when he was a 19 year-old at Harvard. "I laid down the Paradoxical Commandments as a challenge," he said. "The challenge is to always do what is right and good and true, even if others don't appreciate it.” Since then, Kent’s commandments (often titled “Anyways”) spread like wildfire. They were posted on Mother Teresa's wall and by the Boy Scouts, in government buildings, non-profits, churches, schools, and ordinary living rooms all across the world. Only in recent years has Kent himself become aware of how far the ripples have spread.

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