Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States
2000s, A Challenge to Overcome (November 2007)
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women about it without care for their welfare. We cannot afford to permit squalid overcrowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery. We cannot afford to leave American mines, munitions plants, and general resources in the hands of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made hostile to America by machinations such as have recently been provided in the case of the two foreign embassies in Washington. We cannot afford to run the risk of having in time of war men working on our railways or working in our munition plants who would in the name of duty to their own foreign countries bring destruction to us. Recent events have shown us that incitements to sabotage and strikes are in the view of at least two of the great foreign powers of Europe within their definition of neutral practices. What would be done to us in the name of war if these things are done to us in the name of neutrality?
Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States
2000s, A Challenge to Overcome (November 2007)
Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1942/may/19/war-situation#column_67 in the House of Commons (19 May 1942). <br class="br">1940s
“You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful?”
Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 27)
Regina Jonas (1902–1944) rabbi
C.-V.-Zeitung, June 23, 1938
Context: If I confess what motivated me, a woman, to become a rabbi, two things come to mind. My belief in God’s calling and my love of humans. God planted in our heart skills and a vocation without asking about gender. Therefore, it is the duty of men and women alike to work and create according to the skills given by God.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women about it without care for their welfare. We cannot afford to permit squalid overcrowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery. We cannot afford to leave American mines, munitions plants, and general resources in the hands of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made hostile to America by machinations such as have recently been provided in the case of the two foreign embassies in Washington. We cannot afford to run the risk of having in time of war men working on our railways or working in our munition plants who would in the name of duty to their own foreign countries bring destruction to us. Recent events have shown us that incitements to sabotage and strikes are in the view of at least two of the great foreign powers of Europe within their definition of neutral practices. What would be done to us in the name of war if these things are done to us in the name of neutrality?
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837) <br class="br">Context: We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds... A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.
Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer
Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Life and Destiny (1913)
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 168
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States
1930s, Address at San Diego Exposition (1935)
Context: Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged. In the United States we regard it as axiomatic that every person shall enjoy the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of his conscience. Our flag for a century and a half has been the symbol of the principles of liberty of conscience, of religious freedom and of equality before the law; and these concepts are deeply ingrained in our national character.