Posted on 09/08/2019 4:14:58 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
This is the greatest commencement speech ever.
Watched it, love Dr. Rigsby! Thanks for posting.
What an amazing man and speaker!
(I knew before he told us that the ‘3rd grade dropout’ would be his Daddy :-)
Maybe the greatest speech ever was Pericles Funeral Oration for Athenian soldiers killed during the Peloponnesian War as recorded by Thucydides.
Lincoln liked it so much it was the basis for the Gettysburg address.
Thanks, I didn’t know that.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
I fail to see even a remote similarity. Perhaps you would be so kind to show us those similarities.
Very inspirational. Thanks for posting. HOORAY Dr. Rick Rigsby!
Perhaps, but it’s not a commencement speech. 8>)
Wynton Marsalis at Tulane
You cannot beat this for a college graduation
I started to watch it but after a couple of minutes, I realized there was still 24 minutes to go.
When you wrote “ego” I wanted to see eggs.
Thanks : )
I’ll give it a shot, From Wiki:
“The speech begins by praising the custom of the public funeral for the dead, but criticizes the inclusion of the speech, arguing that the “reputations of many brave men” should “not be imperiled in the mouth of a single individual”. Pericles argues that the speaker of the oration has the impossible task of satisfying the associates of the dead, who would wish that their deeds be magnified, while everyone else might feel jealous and suspect exaggeration.”
From Lincoln’s address:
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
******************
The takeaway is that both speechwriters acknowledge that no speech can capture or describe the depth of what happened.
There may be more similarities but we can definitely see Lincoln pulling a Greek classic off the shelf and reading while pondering what could be said about such an event.
I suggest you Google and see all the hits on essays & arguments for its similarity. It’s not just me. You of course are free to disagree.
A Cheese Souffle is probably the most heavenly thing that you can do with eggs:
https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/aspen-2003-mamans-cheese-souffle
A man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress. ~ Ayn Rand
Ego is different from egotism. See my post (Ayn Rand) 18.
Ego says achieve. Ego says excel. Ego say carry more weight than you can.
Atlas shrugged...
My daughter went with the, “cool dad” argument a few days ago.
Ego says, I’m not that dad.
And, I made her lunches for 17 years!
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