Society and the World

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.

As you cannot do what you want, want what you can do.

We enact many laws that manufacturecriminals, and then a few that punish them.

 

I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I likegardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humor (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.

 

The Road goes ever on and on

 

Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make abody of more or less connected legend, rangingfrom the large and cosmogonic, to the level ofromantic fairy-story—the larger founded onthe lesser in contact with the earth, the lesserdrawing splendor from the vast backcloths—which I could dedicate simply to: to England; tomy country.

 

Cannon to right of them,

 

He works his work, I mine.

 

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink

 

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

 

And the stately ships go on

 

[The Republican Party] had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.

 

Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that theU.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium-and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don’t wait for the translation. . . . I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over, if that’s your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room!

 

Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that theU.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium-and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don’t wait for the translation. . . . I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over, if that’s your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room!

 

We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

 

We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

 

We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

 

Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, theanonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab andanything to win. This is Nixonland. But I say toyou that it is not America.

 

I yield to no man—if I may borrow thatmajestic parliamentary phrase—I yield to no man in my belief in the principle of free debate, inside or outside the halls of Congress. The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.

 

I yield to no man—if I may borrow thatmajestic parliamentary phrase—I yield to no man in my belief in the principle of free debate, inside or outside the halls of Congress. The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.

 

The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.