Essay of the Week
When he was a child, Howard White’s mother taught him the importance of greeting people. Now an executive at Nike, White believes everyone he meets deserves to have their presence and their humanity acknowledged. For him that begins with “hello.” Click here to read his essay.What Students Believe
Throughout the school year, young people around the world write statements of belief as a classroom exercise. And thousands of those students have submitted their essays to our series. Click here to read a sampling of what young people believe.
Browse Essays By Theme
Use this feature to browse through the tens of thousands of essays that have been submitted to This I Believe. Select a theme to see a listing of essays that address the selected theme.
The number to the right of each theme indicates how many essays have been tagged with that particular theme.
- addiction (1108)
- afterlife (526)
- America & patriotism (1672)
- atheism (272)
- birth (448)
- brotherhood & friendship (4466)
- carpe diem (3558)
- change (3855)
- charity & service (1723)
- children (2552)
- Christianity (1421)
- citizenship (512)
- community (2226)
- courage (2535)
- creativity (4657)
- death (3588)
- democracy (333)
- disability (709)
- discrimination (891)
- education & knowledge (4557)
- empathy & compassion (2749)
- environment (1080)
- equality (1706)
- faith & religion (5203)
- family (13235)
- fear (1075)
- forgiveness (1436)
- freedom (1100)
- golden rule (1170)
- good & evil (1959)
- goodness & kindness (3496)
- government & constitution (570)
- gratitude (2963)
- Holocaust (68)
- hope (3659)
- humanism (943)
- humility (544)
- humor & laughter (1553)
- humor & laughter (1)
- illness (2215)
- immigrant (850)
- injustice (506)
- integrity (1849)
- legacy (1708)
- love (6460)
- morality (705)
- music (1379)
- nature (1771)
- parenthood (1940)
- patriotism (1724)
- peace (820)
- pets & animals (1459)
- place (1015)
- pleasure (2454)
- popular culture (2449)
- prejudice (753)
- purpose (2975)
- question (2337)
- race (728)
- respect (2065)
- responsibility (2345)
- science (873)
- self-determination (10794)
- self-knowledge (15706)
- setbacks (5324)
- social justice (890)
- sports (3863)
- tolerance (1572)
- values & spirituality (6083)
- war (840)
- work (4887)
