“We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living.”

Speech in the US House of Representatives on April 2, 1828, as quoted in The Life of Colonel David Crockett (1884) by Edward Sylvester Ellis and in the January 1867 issue of Harper's magazine ("Davy Crockett's Electioneering Tours"), p. 606-611. Known as the "Not Yours to Give" speech. Though it may have expressed his attitudes on the issue, there has been dispute as to the authenticity of this speech as there is no known record of it prior to this 1884 work.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice …" by Davy Crockett?
Davy Crockett photo
Davy Crockett 29
American politician 1786–1836

Related quotes

“We will be able to depart this life with the quiet peace-giving notion, that we were permitted to contribute to the happiness of many who will live after us. In our long lives we endeavored to unfold the collective consciousness. In our lives we have known hell and heaven; the final balance, however, is that we helped pave the way to dynamic harmony in this earthly house. That, I believe, is the meaning of this live.”

Reinout Willem van Bemmelen (1904–1983) Dutch geologist

Letter to a friend, July 1981 cited in: "In Memoriam R. W. van Bemmelen," Geologie en Mijnbouw, Vol 63, No. 1 (1984); Reprinted online at Tectonics and Sedimentation of Indonesia http://fosi.iagi.or.id/tecsed/tecsed-inmemoriam.htm website, 1999.

Jimmy Carter photo
Malcolm X photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo

“It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.”

Part I : Ambiguity and Freedom
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Variant: Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting
Context: In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men. There was Stalingrad and there was Buchenwald, and neither of the two wipes out the other. Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting [C'est dans la connaissance des conditions authentiques de notre vie qu'il nous faut puiser la force de vivre et des raisons d'agir].

Oprah Winfrey photo

“We ourselves of the present age, chose our common law, and consented to the most ancient Acts of Parliament, for we lived in our ancestors 1,000 years ago, and those ancestors are still living in us.”

Robert Atkyns (judge) (1621–1710) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords

11 How. St. Tr. 1204.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

At A Child's Grave (1882)
Context: The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all.
We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living, hope for the dead.

Simon Sinek photo

“Most of us live our lives by accident—we live as it happens. Fullfillment comes when we live our lives on purpose.”

Simon Sinek (1973) British/American author and motivational speaker

Source: Together is Better: A Little Book of Inspiration

Related topics