“The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise”
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Pierre Joseph Proudhon 40
French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and so… 1809–1865Related quotes
“To-day, let us rise and go to our work. To-morrow, we shall rise and go to our reward.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 131.
“Let us do our thinking on these great questions”
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Introduction, p.xv
Context: Let us do our thinking on these great questions, not with our eyes fixed on our bank account, but with a wise outlook on the fields of the future and with the consciousness that the spirit of the Eternal is seeking to distil from our lives, some essence of righteousness, before they pass away.
1970s, Second Inaugural Address (1973)
Speech at the Albert Hall (4 December 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 70-71.
1924
Context: It is a testing time for democracy... Democracy, democratic government, calls for harder work, for higher education, for further vision than any form of government known in this world. It has not lasted long yet in the West, and it is only by those like ourselves who believe in it making it a success that we can hope to see it permanent and yielding those fruits which it ought to yield. The assertion of people's rights has never yet provided that people with bread. The performance of their duties, and that alone, can lead to the successful issue of those experiments in government which we have carried further than any other people in this world. Democracy can rise to great heights; it can also sink to great depths. It is for us so to conduct ourselves, and so to educate our own people, that we may achieve the heights and avoid the depths.
Source: Sacred Heart High School Students Interview Bishop Kihneman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL9mdS05f_4 (February 17, 2021)
Lt Col Colin Mitchell http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7111303.stm.
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)
Context: For all Americans. Because I believe we are stronger together. It’s a vision for the future rooted in our values and reflected in a rising generation of young people who are the most open, diverse, and connected we’ve ever seen.... Let’s keep moving forward together. Let’s stand up against prejudice and paranoia. Let’s prove once again, that America is great because is America is good.
1963, Remarks Intended for Delivery to the Texas Democratic State Committee in the Municipal Auditorium in Austin
Speech (1 April 1928), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 417
1920s