
“The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 131.
“The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise”
The Golden Violet - title poem - introduction
The Golden Violet (1827)
This is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery.
1961, Inaugural Address
Context: Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
Speech to the quarterly meeting of the National Production Advisory Council on Industry (28 May 1954), quoted in The Times (29 May 1954), p. 3
Chancellor of the Exchequer
“If we only have love
Then tomorrow will dawn
And the days of our years
Will rise on that morn.”
Translations and adaptations, If We Only Have Love (1968)
“If we only have love
Then tomorrow will dawn
And the days of our years
Will rise on that morn.”
"If We Only Have Love" as translated in the closing scene in the 1968 musical Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1975 film version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdSXpC8fbNA · Cover versions by Nana Mouskouri http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYeHUhoLNgM · Johnny Mathis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyJF0ISolEw · Olivia Newton John http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RFhzinX7X8 · Amanda McBroom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWkvKMlOYyI
If Only We Have Love (1957)
2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero
Writ of expulsion from the Jewish community, as translated in Benedict de Spinoza : His Life, Correspondence, and Ethics (1870) by Robert Willis
Context: With the judgment of the angels and the sentence of the saints, we anathematize, execrate, curse and cast out Baruch de Espinoza, the whole of the sacred community assenting, in presence of the sacred books with the six-hundred-and-thirteen precepts written therein, pronouncing against him the malediction wherewith Elisha cursed the children, and all the maledictions written in the Book of the Law. Let him be accursed by day, and accursed by night; let him be accursed in his lying down, and accursed in his rising up; accursed in going out and accursed in coming in. May the Lord never more pardon or acknowledge him; may the wrath and displeasure of the Lord burn henceforth against this man, load him with all the curses written in the Book of the Law, and blot out his name from under the sky; may the Lord sever him from all the tribes of Israel, weight him with all the maledictions of the firmament contained in the Book of Law; and may all ye who are obedient to the Lord your God be saved this day.
Hereby then are all admonished that none hold converse with him by word of mouth, none hold communication with him by writing; that no one do him any service, no one abide under the same roof with him, no one approach within four cubits' length of him, and no one read any document dictated by him, or written by his hand.