Your Quote of the Day

I think it was Ed McMahon wasn't it?

"Fellow-Countrymen:

"At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. "

Abraham Lincoln
The 2nd Inaugural Address
delivered March 4 1865


[But you knew that, edgar. ]

But it's great seeing it in context.

(cough cough, clear the throat)


POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
___________________________
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it to arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God. Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, in humanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government.

Thomas J. Clarke,
Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh,
P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt,
James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett


The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation
Padraig Pearse, James Connolly, Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh, Sean MacDermott, Joseph Plunkett & Eamonn Ceannt
All of the above men were executed by the British Government for their efforts in trying to secure a free Ireland!

"Never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."

Gore Vidal.

No wonder everybody wants to be on teevee.

"Lost for words again Norman?"

Gore Vidal after Mailer head-butted him in the piss-nook of a TV studio.

Thank you for posting that, euro!

Them seven boy's would be turning in their graves if they could see the mess we've made of it so far.
Ah well, we're young yet.

Yes--it was a very good quote euro. A bit divisive for a europhile but never mind. Let's keep fighting the Battle of the Boyne eh? That should bring us all together.

Quote?. It's the Irish Declaration of Independence, actually we,re getting close to our centenary. 2016.
Don't worry I don't declare war on weekdays.

Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he spoke.

"- I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame."

Joyce - Ulysses

"Nice guys come in last."

Genghis Khan

One thing you might notice.....

Lincoln clearly meant this address for the common man and not for academics or some sort of an elite group of the wealthy or any such. He was assuming a substantially higher average reading ability in the general public than we have today i.e. it seems fairly obvious that most Americans today couldn't read these sentences and comprehend them. I assume that is because Lincoln's audience did not have our present public education system to dumb them down.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
~ Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”
― Gore Vidal

“The unfed mind devours itself.”
― Gore Vidal

“Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. ”
― Gore Vidal

Beware that knowing the quote deludes you into thinking you have a fed mind.

The unfed mind believing itself fed will remain unfed for as long as it believes it.

--spendius.

To the extent that Mr Vidal's remark encourages the complacency to which I referred, it encourages the unfed mind to remain unfed.

But it is okay for those who take it as an admonition. Assuming the assertion is true.

And assuming that the reader is using the same idea of "fed" as Mr Vidal had in mind. Is Momsie ladling it in on a silver spoon or are a multitude of delicate fronds waving in the ambient medium as it washes past?

One might see the tempermental difference between Vidal and Mailer with that comparison.

I come from a time when women preferred a Russian to a Brazilian.
George Richards.

When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it.
~Bernard Baily

99% is the same as zero. If you are gonna do 99, go ahead and stay home.
Will Smith

I beg to disagree.

That is one of those arrogant horseshit statements that is most commonly made by athletes. All or nothing etc.

Anyone capable of giving 99 percent is putting his heart into it and probably doing the best he/she can. Applaud the effort. 100 percent is reserved for comic book heroes.