Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
My first reason was his temperament; I knew his having to come to me would make him bow before me in spirit, as he was a tyrant, and tyrants are always cringers. My second reason was that I thought myself near enough to control of the convention to be able to win control by creating the atmosphere of impending success.
Such a man may not be understood or be awarded the credit due to him as "lord of the lion heart" and despiser of sycophants and cringers. The habit of mind, nevertheless, is worth cultivating; it will be so very useful some day, when mortal garments have been put off and the vast inequalities of destiny adjusted, and we all stand unclothed before the Judge.
No never. When liberty goes it is not the first to go nor the second or third to go ... it awaits for all the rest to go ... it is the last.... When the memories of the old martyrs are faded utterly away ... when the large names of patriots are laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators ... when the boys are no more christened after the same but christened after tyrants and traitors instead ... when the laws of the free are grudgingly permitted and the laws for informers and bloodmoney are sweet to the taste of the people ... when I and you walk abroad upon the earth stung with compassion at the sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship and calling no man master and when we are elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves ... when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night and surveys its experience and has much extasy over the word and deed that put back a helpless innocent person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel inferiority ... when those in all parts of these states who could easier realize the true American character but do not yet when the swarms of cringers, suckers, doughfaces, lice of politics, planners of sly involutions for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures or the judiciary or congress or the presidency, obtain a response of love and natural deference from the people whether they get the offices or no ... when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary than the poorest free mechanic or farmer with his hat unmoved from his head and firm eyes and a candid and generous heart ... and when servility by town or state or the federal government or any oppression on a large scale or small scale can be tried on without its own punishment following duly after in exact proportion against the smallest chance of escape ... or rather when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth.
I ask for the human soul the same liberty in every direction. That is the only crime I have committed. I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites.
He fought the army of hypocrisy and pretense, the army of faith and falsehood. Voltaire was annoyed by the meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the cringers and crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by those who wished to gain the favors of priests, the patronage of nobles. Sometimes he allowed himself to be annoyed by these scorpions; sometimes he attacked them.
That is the only crime that I have committed. That is all. I say, let us have a chance. Let us think, and let each one express his thoughts. Let us become investigators, not followers; not cringers and crawlers. If there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites.
Word Of The Day