XVIII. SPEECH
Orphic Sayings
Context: There is a magic in free speaking, especially on sacred themes, most potent and resistless. It is refreshing, amidst the inane common-places bandied in pulpits and parlors, to hear a hopeful word from an earnest, upright soul. Men rally around it as to the lattice in summer heats, to inhale the breeze that flows cool and refreshing from the mountains, and invigorates their languid frames. Once heard, they feel a buoyant sense of health and hopefulness, and wonder that they should have lain sick, supine so long, when a word has power to raise them from their couch, and restore them to soundness. And once spoken, it shall never be forgotten; it charms, exalts; it visits them in dreams, and haunts them during all their wakeful hours. Great, indeed, is the delight of speech; sweet the sound of one’s bosom thought, as it returns laden with the fragrance of a brother’s approval.
“They put off hearings wilfully,
To finger the refreshing fee.”
"The Grumbling Hive", line 65, p. 4
The Fable of the Bees (1714)
“Justice is a constant uprightness in words and in deeds.”
Four Discoveries of Praise to God, eds. C. Matthew McMahon and Therese B. McMahon (Puritan Publications, 2012), Ch. 2, p. 28
Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 388 (1926)
Source: 2015, Supreme Court Decision on Marriage Equality (June 2015)
Context: I know that Americans of goodwill continue to hold a wide range of views on this issue. Opposition in some cases has been based on sincere and deeply held beliefs. All of us who welcome today’s news should be mindful of that fact; recognize different viewpoints; revere our deep commitment to religious freedom. But today should also give us hope that on the many issues with which we grapple, often painfully, real change is possible. Shifts in hearts and minds is possible. And those who have come so far on their journey to equality have a responsibility to reach back and help others join them. Because for all our differences, we are one people, stronger together than we could ever be alone. That’s always been our story. We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny.
Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 6, p. 167 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'
Quote from: On the Spiritual in Art, 1911; as cited in Schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 17
1910 - 1915
“Susan had an earnest soul, a conscience tending to morbidity.”
Susan B. Anthony (1884)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 238.
“All loved Art in a seemly way
With an earnest soul and a capital A.”
The V-a-s-e, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
