Tuesday, December 12, 2006

My view of the Hate America First crowd is best expressed by our 26th President

Saturday, December 09, 2006 (originally post to my MySpace page)

My view of the Hate America First crowd is best expressed by our 26th President

"Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty...A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves intheir own weakness...

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt
26th President of the United States
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
"The Man In The Arena"
Speech at the Sorbonne
Paris, France April 23, 1910

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are the times that try mens souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will in crisis fade, but he that stands the course deserves the love and thanks of man and woman......my appologies to Thomas Paine if the qoute is off a little

and .......Those that would give up a littel freedom for a little security desirve neither.....

Ben Franklin with my appologies for a mis quoute as this come from memory


MECJ

Benjamin Cook said...

Depends on your view of exactly who the "sunshine patriot" is...maybe he is that "cold and timid soul."

As for Franklin...well, this is the most over quoted and least understood quote I know of. If you look at what Franklin stood for. What his life was attributed to, you will see the error in assigning this too much authority in a modern context. In short, Franklin would be pro security. Because he would understand the inverse, that without security there is no freedom. It is the basis of John Locke's Social Contract. You have to give up enough of your State of Nature existence in order to have ample peace and security to enjoy the freedom you have left in reserve.

Benjamin