
Cheers.
Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
Leader of the Opposition
Speech to the Royal Society of St George (23 April 1933), Winston Churchill, Never Give In!: Winston Churchill's Speeches (A&C Black, 2013), p. 402
The 1930s
Cheers.
Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
Leader of the Opposition
Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 11 (2006; 13)
“Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment.”
Invadat animum sacra quaedam ambitio ut mediocribus non contenti anhelemus ad summa, adque illa (quando possumus si volumus) consequenda totis viribus enitamur.
10. 50; translation by A. Robert Caponigri
Variant translation by Robert Hooker:
Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1496)
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: God is imperiled. He is not almighty, that we may cross our hands, waiting for certain victory. He is not all-holy, that we may wait trustingly for him to pity and to save us.
Within the province of our ephemeral flesh all of God is imperiled. He cannot be saved unless we save him with our own struggles; nor can we be saved unless he is saved.
We are one. From the blind worm in the depths of the ocean to the endless arena of the Galaxy, only one person struggles and is imperiled: You. And within your small and earthen breast only one thing struggles and is imperiled: the Universe.
Source: Disputed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (1978), p. 288
"The Response" prayer rally, 2011-08-06, quoted in * Kyle
Mantyla
The Response: Dobsons Ask God To Give America A "Miracle At Dunkirk"
Right Wing Watch
2011-08-06
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/response-dobsons-ask-god-give-america-miracle-dunkirk
2011-08-06
2011
2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.
Source: 1962, Address at Independence Hall
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties
Context: We admit with all sincerity that our first duty is within our own household; that we must not merely talk, but act, in favor of cleanliness and decency and righteousness, in all political, social, and civic matters. No prosperity and no glory can save a nation that is rotten at heart. We must ever keep the core of our national being sound, and see to it that not only our citizens in private life, but, above all, our statesmen in public life, practice the old commonplace virtues which from time immemorial have lain at the root of all true national wellbeing.