Quote of the Day (William Faulkner, on Speaking Out for 'Honesty and Truth and Compassion’)

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice and lying and greed. If you… will do this…you will change the earth. In one generation, all the Napoleons and Hitlers and Caesars and Mussolinis and Stalins, and all the other tyrants who want power and aggrandizement, and all the simple politicians and time-servers who themselves are merely baffled or ignorant or afraid, who have used, or are using, or hope to use, man's fear and greed for man’s enslavement, will have vanished from the face of it.”—American Nobel Literature laureate William Faulkner (1897-1962), Address to the Graduating Class at University High School in Oxford, MS (1952)

Sixty years ago this week, William Faulkner died. It had taken more than two decades for him to achieve recognition from the public, but he had already won the Nobel Prize—and would shortly win the first of two Pulitzers—when he addressed local students in his hometown.

If anything, Faulkner’s influence has only grown since his death, as readers see how he came to grips with racism, greed, the despoliation of the environment, and other sins concerning the Deep South but which, in truth, are also wider American dilemmas.

As I read this speech, I could hear echoes of Faulkner’s more famous Nobel Prize acceptance lecture, in which he spoke of “the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.”

Faulkner wrote of the innate dignity and courage that enabled people to survive an age of dictators abroad and “politicians and time-servers” at home. I hope today’s teachers, in spite of dangers from every direction, are instilling in students the lesson Faulkner imparted 70 years ago. I hope that we all, despite our failings, reach for the best in ourselves that he recognized in addition to the enemies that beset us still: “injustice and lying and greed.”

For a succinct consideration of Faulkner’s relationship to Hollywood, where he worked as a screenwriter at a time when his books hadn’t yet caught on with a wide reading public, see Laura Alvarez Trigo’s post onthe PopMeC Research Blog.

Quote of the Day (John Stuart Mill, on the Responsibility of Good Men Who Do Nothing)

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject. It depends on the habit of attending to and looking into public transactions, and on the degree of information and solid judgment respecting them that exists in the community, whether the conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and towards others, shall be selfish, corrupt, and tyrannical, or rational and enlightened, just and noble.”—English political philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews (Feb. 1, 1867)

More than a century and a half after its original publication, Mill’s On Liberty remains relevant as the best defense of free speech and, indeed, the foundation of modern notions of toleration and liberalism.

His views on what citizenship entails—and the need for information-based judgment on the part of anyone who hopes to have a voice in the governance of a country—in the above quote should be weighed and pondered all the more.

Quote of the Day (Margaret Chase Smith, on How ‘Freedom Unexercised May Be Freedom Forfeited’)

“One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act too impulsively without thinking. I am not advocating in the slightest that we become mutes with our voices stilled because of fear of criticism of what we might say. That is moral cowardice. And moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. The importance of individual thinking to the preservation of our democracy and our freedom cannot be overemphasized. The broader sense of the concept of your role in the defense of democracy is that of the citizen doing his most for the preservation of democracy and peace by independent thinking, making that thinking articulate by translating it into action at the ballot boxes, in the forums, and in everyday life, and being constructive and positive in that thinking and articulation. The most precious thing that democracy gives to us is freedom. You and I cannot escape the fact that the ultimate responsibility for freedom is personal. Our freedoms today are not so much in danger because people are consciously trying to take them away from us as they are in danger because we forget to use them. Freedom unexercised may be freedom forfeited. The preservation of freedom is in the hands of the people themselves — not of the government.” — Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995), Republican Senator from Maine, quoted in NEA Journal: The Journal of the National Education Association‎ Vol. 41 (1952)

Quote of the Day (James Russell Lowell, on Crises and ‘New Duties’)

“New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.”—American poet, editor, and diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), “The Present Crisis” (1844)

Quote of the Day (Robert Frost, on Responsibility and Persistence)

"By good rights I ought not to have so much 

Put on me, but there seems no other way. 

Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.

He says the best way out is always through.”—American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963), “A Servant to Servants,” in North of Boston (1915)

(The image accompanying this post, a 1959 photograph of the poet taken by Walter Albertin, comes from the Library of Congress’ New York World-Telegram and Sun Collection.)

Quote of the Day (William Shakespeare, on Being on Holiday All Year Round)

“If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work.”—Prince Hal in English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Henry IV, Part I (1600)

When I came across this quote a week ago, there was no identification of it other than the fact that it had been written by Shakespeare. But it reminded me an awful lot of a class I took on Shakespeare nearly 40 years ago with Columbia University’s Edward Tayler. 

The theme I recall, from that single semester, was about going from the world of holiday to the world of everyday—and sure enough, this is the passage that Prince Hal, boon companion to a bunch of hellraisers like Falstaff, will negotiate on his way to becoming King Henry V, the monarch who will reject his old way of life in assuming his new responsibilities.

This week, then, will be the last chance to enjoy the world of holiday while we can. Let’s enjoy it while we can.

Quote of the Day (Pope Francis, on Our ‘Shared Responsibility for Others and the World’)

“We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.” —Pope Francis, Laudato Si (“On Care for Our Common Home”), May 24, 2015

Quote of the Day (Dag Hammarskjold, on the ‘Right to Command’)

"Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated." — Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961), United Nations Secretary General, in Markings, translated by Leif Sjoeberg and W.H. Auden (1965)