Normandy Beach Commemoration: Speeches that Matter

Words to Live By

"Life is an exciting business and most exciting when lived for others." --Helen Keller
"Every morning cries to us: 'Do what you ought and trust what may be.'" --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury--to me, these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for the body and the mind." --Albert Einstein
"The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope." --Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage." --Thucydides
"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. . . By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves." --Robert Louis Stevenson
"The wise man reads both books and life itself." --Lin Yutang
"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, love, and understanding companionship." --Amelia Earhart
"Remember this lesson. History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads. People get the history they deserve." --Charles de Gaulle
"Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work." --Gustave Flaubert
"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." --Theodore Roosevelt
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable." --Helen Keller
"Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done." --Amelia Earhart
"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear, nor mountain heights, where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings. How can life grant us boon of living, compensate for dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate, unless we dare the soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay with courage to behold restless day and count it fair." --Amelia Earhart
"One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness--simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain." --George Sand

November 2009

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Normandy Beach Commemoration: Speeches that Matter

Ronald Reagan's speech at Normandy Beach in 1984 is aptly recalled as among the most significant and effective of his presidency.

Now, with Barack Obama following in his footsteps, Julian Zelizer has written a fine thought piece on the occasion and its prospective role in the arc of the 44th presidency.

Lest anyone dismiss the rhetorical aspects of leadership, let them consider this history, this occasion, and its enduring place in the America's view of the world--and the world's view of America.

Posted on June 05, 2009 at 10:13 AM in Communications, Current Affairs, Generations, History, Leadership, Serve to Lead® 21st-Century Leadership | Permalink