Samuel Francis Smith (1808–1895) Protestant Christian Minister Patriotic hymn writer
America, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912) <br class="br">Context: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high<br>Where knowledge is free<br>Where the world has not been broken up into fragments<br>By narrow domestic walls<br>Where words come out from the depth of truth<br>Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection<br>Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way<br>Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit<br>Where the mind is led forward by thee<br>Into ever-widening thought and action<br>Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Samuel Francis Smith (1808–1895) Protestant Christian Minister Patriotic hymn writer
America, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
1960s, I Have A Dream (1963)
William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer
The Way to Divine Knowledge (1762).
Context: If Reason seems to have any Power against Religion, it is only where Religion is become a dead Form, has lost its true State, and is dwindled into Opinion; and when this is the Case, that Religion stands only as a well-grounded Opinion, then indeed it is always liable to be shaken; either by having its own Credibility lessened, or that of a contrary Opinion increased. But when Religion is that which it should be, not a Notion or Opinion, but a real Life growing up in God, then Reason has just as much power to stop its Course, as the barking Dog to stop the Course of the Moon. For true and genuine Religion is Nature, is Life, and the Working of Life; and therefore, wherever it is, Reason has no more Power over it, than over the Roots that grow secretly in the Earth, or the Life that is working in the highest Heavens. If therefore you are afraid of Reason hurting your Religion, it is a Sign, that your Religion is not yet as it should be, is not a self-evident Growth of Nature and Life within you, but has much of mere Opinion in it.
“Father in heaven, when the thought of thee awakens in our soul”
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Journals and Papers IIA320
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
Context: Father in heaven, when the thought of thee awakens in our soul, let it not waken as an agitated bird which flutters confusedly about, but as a child waking from sleep with a celestial smile.
George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter
By Still Waters (1906)
William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951) American newspaper publisher
Communication to the American Crime Study Commission (May 19, 1929)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)
1950s, Atoms for Peace (1953)
Context: Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the "Great Destroyers" but the whole book of history reveals mankind's never-ending quest for peace, and mankind's God-given capacity to build. It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreement, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom, and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life. So my country's purpose is to help us move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men every where, can move forward toward peace and happiness and well being.
“Obscure they went through dreary shades, that led
Along the waste dominions of the dead.”
Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,
Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VI, Lines 268–269 (tr. John Dryden)