1870s, Eighth State of the Union Address (1876)
Context: It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training. From the age of 17 I had never even witnessed the excitement attending a Presidential campaign but twice antecedent to my own candidacy, and at but one of them was I eligible as a voter.
Under such circumstances it is but reasonable to suppose that errors of judgment must have occurred. Even had they not, differences of opinion between the Executive, bound by an oath to the strict performance of his duties, and writers and debaters must have arisen. It is not necessarily evidence of blunder on the part of the Executive because there are these differences of views. Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I admit...
“In view of my previous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered.”
Introduction: The Custom-House
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
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Nathaniel Hawthorne 128
American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879) 1804–1864Related quotes
“My lovely living boy,
My hope, my hap, my love, my life, my joy.”
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii. Compare: "My fair son! My life, my joy, my food, my all the world", William Shakespeare, King John, act iii. sc. 4.
La Seconde Semaine (1584)
Resignation letter, 1857
Letter to Bernard Baruch (19 August 1916), PWW 38:51
1910s
Variant: Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide.
“Never grieve for me if it is my good fortune to die with my boots on. That's what I most hope for.”
in a letter to Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of the National Geographic (1948)
“Committing suicide so as not to be murdered is the worst reason I've ever heard of to die.”
Source: God-Shaped Hole
Address at the National Archives dedicating a shrine for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (15 December 1952) https://trumanlibrary.org/calendar/viewpapers.php?pid=2102
Context: Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.
All freedom-loving nations, not the United States alone, are facing a stern challenge from the Communist tyranny. In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn't alarmed simply doesn't understand the situation — or he is crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve.
Invasion and conquest by Communist armies would be a horror beyond our capacity to imagine. But invasion and conquest by Communist ideas of right and wrong would be just as bad.
For us to embrace the methods and morals of communism in order to defeat Communist aggression would be a moral disaster worse than any physical catastrophe. If that should come to pass, then the Constitution and the Declaration would be utterly dead and what we are doing today would be the gloomiest burial in the history of the world.
“...any Japanese officer wishing to commit suicide would be given every facility.”
Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 442