A variant of part of this statement is often quoted: Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)
Context: I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vineyard, the one that produces words and pictures. You will, I am sure, forgive me for not telling you that instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility is unprecedented or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not necessary to remind you of the fact that your voice, amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other, does not confer upon you greater wisdom than when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know.
“I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other”
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Michel De Montaigne 264
(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592Related quotes
Nelson Mandela on challenges, Letter to Winnie Mandela (1 February 1975), written on Robben Island. Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes
1970s
Source: The Diamond Throne
“Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest,
May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage.”
Act II, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)
Context: My voice is still for war.
Gods! Can a Roman senate long debate
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?
No, let us rise at once,
Gird on our swords, and,
At the head of our remaining troops, attack the foe,
Break through the thick array of his throng'd legions,
And charge home upon him.
Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest,
May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage.
As quoted in Successful Aging : A Conference Report (1974) by Eric Pfeiffer, p. 142
Attributed
“I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing.”.”
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
“One Whitman is miracle enough, and when he comes again it will be the end of the world.”
“Some Lines from Whitman”, p. 119
Poetry and the Age (1953)