"I was one of a group of boys...

"I was one of a group of boys who sat on the floor of our professor's office for a weekly lesson in 'spoken English'. One day the professor put a large sheet of white paper on the wall. The paper had a little black dot on the right-hand corner. When the professor asked, 'Boys, what do you see?' we all shouted together 'A black dot!' The professor stepped back and said, 'So, not a single one of you saw the white sheet of paper. You only saw the black dot. This is the awful thing about human nature. People never see the goodness of things, and the broader picture. Don' t go through life with that attitude.' " (c) K. Annan