27 February 2021

Nobly.


Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier."

Theodore Roosevelt, from his speech, “Citizenship in a Republic,” delivered at the Sorbonne, April 23, 1910

George Harrison of The Crowned Heads of Anti-Music put it this way ...
Have you seen the little piggies crawling in the dirt?
And for all the little piggies life is getting worse,
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies in their starched white shirts?
You will find the bigger piggies stirring up the dirt,
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their sties with all their backing hey don't care what goes on around,
In their eyes there's something lacking,
What they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of piggies living piggie lives,
You can see them out for dinner with their piggie wives,
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.
 

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