Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Iowa Caucus Victory Speech, Delivered at the Iowa Democratic caucus on 3 January 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZaq-YKCnE <br class="br">2008
Broadcast from 10 Downing Street, London (24 May 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 60-61.
1927
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Iowa Caucus Victory Speech, Delivered at the Iowa Democratic caucus on 3 January 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZaq-YKCnE <br class="br">2008
Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher
Rivers of Blood http://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Rivers_of_Blood BBC2 documentary (8 March 2008)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)
1960s, Memorial Day speech (1963)
Context: The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and inequality is a history of disuse of the law. Law has not failed — and is not failing. We as a nation have failed ourselves by not trusting the law and by not using the law to gain sooner the ends of justice which law alone serves. If the white over-estimates what he has done for the Negro without the law, the Negro may under-estimate what he is doing and can do for himself with the law.
Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer
Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" (1992), Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power, p. 190 (p. 165 in some editions). This famous passage from her book is very often erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela. About the mis-attribution Williamson said, "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."
Variant which appears in the film Coach Carter (2005): "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Variant which appears in the film Akeelah and the Bee (2006), displayed in a picture frame on the wall, attributing it to Mandela: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist
These statements have been misattributed to Mandela, as being in his inaugural speech of 10 May 1994 http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mandela.html but this is not the case. Rather, they originate with author Marianne Williamson. <br class="br">Misattributed
Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher
As quoted in Radical Puritan, by Fowler, 51–52
Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor
14 November 1878
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)