Strong Medicine

I recently sent an email to some of you regarding the memorial ceremonies I've been attending. The poor guy left in charge here has to think of something new to say every time. I mentioned that he quoted Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. To answer your question, here are the quotations.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Mill, English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
"The Crisis," December 23, 1776
Thomas Paine, American revolutionary (1737-1809)

I scoured the internet and couldn't find the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quotation used at the memorial, but perhaps I will find it another time... Here are some other snippits of his instead:

"Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body."

"Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall."

"Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind, and somtimes against it -- but sail we must, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American Supreme Court justice (1841-1935)