Category: Thought

I think this would be a good time for a beer.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, March 22, 1933.

I avow myself the partisan of truth alone.

William Harvey, “Dedication to Dr. Argent and Other Learned Physicians,” Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis (1628).

oratory

noun : the science of discovering and expressing what ought to be said on political affairs, in language adapted to persuade the people.

Definition of Ariston, disciple of Critolaus, as quoted in Quintilian, The Institutes of Oratory (Rev. John Selby Watson, translator, London: Bell & Daldy, 1873), p. 143.

Man comes into the world naked and unarmed, as if nature had destined him for a social creature, and ordained him to live under equitable laws and in peace; as if she had desired that he should be guided by reason rather than be driven by force; therefore did she endow him with understanding, and furnish him with hands, that he might himself contrive what was necessary to his clothing and protection. To those animals to which nature has given vast strength, she has also presented weapons in harmony with their powers; to those that are not thus vigorous, she has given ingenuity, cunning, and singular dexterity in avoiding injury.

William Harvey, De Generatione Animalium (1651).

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t really matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., the conclusion of his “Mountaintop” speech (April 3, 1968).

That freedom was a right, that the very first of the natural rights of man was to be free and to belong only to himself, would seem to be self-evident, and yet thousands of years had to pass before the glorious thought was generally accepted, and the nations of earth had the courage to proclaim it.

Jules Verne, Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon (1881), p. 2.