[Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates 1647] This is one Liberal Text. And it is more distinctive than may at first appear. It asserts the individual and the value of any individual - even the poorest He. But it asserts it without envy. It does not demand that the rich be made poor - nor even claim that the poor are more deserving than the rich. It demands equality in one thing only, the right to live one's own life.
The Liberal Future (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 12.
The Liberal Future (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 12.
Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 209.
“The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer.”
Education (1902)
Context: He who knows naught of dreaming can, likewise, never attain the heights of power and possibility in persuading the mind to act.
He who dreams not creates not.
For vapor must arise in the air before the rain can fall.
The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer. For in him the dreamer is fortified against destruction by a far-seeing eye, a virile mind, a strong will, a robust courage.
And so has perished the kindly dreamer — on the cross or in the garret.
A democracy should not let its dreamers perish. They are its life, its guaranty against decay.
Thus would I expand the sympathies of youth.
Thus would I liberate and discipline all the constructive faculties of the mind and encourage true insight, true expression, real individuality.
Thus would I concentrate the powers of will.
Thus would I shape character.
Thus would I make good citizens.
And thus would I lay the foundations for a generation of real architects — real, because true, men, and dreamers in action.
Something Fresh (1915)
Another couplet from Edward Young: this time Night Thoughts, Night II, line 160.
Misattributed
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 160.
