27 February 2011

Link of the day: Robert F. Kennedy eulogy

A recent New York Times article mentioned a lost wallet found 40 years later. Among other things, the wallet contained a clipping of Senator Edward M. Kennedy's eulogy for his brother Robert F. Kennedy. The owner of the wallet could still recite the closing words of the eulogy:
Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.
The entire text of the eulogy is worth reading.

In these present times, we have become so jaded and pessimistic. I like reading about these brave, idealistic Americans from the 1960s and learning from the dreams of a nation past.

Last month, Robert Sargent Shriver (known better as "Sargent" Shriver) passed away. I was too young to even have heard of him. He was an activist for public service and the first director of the Peace Corps. I found the text of a banquet speech he gave at Yale in 1967. I was moved by Shriver's passion for a better world and his conviction that
Human life is too valuable to be wasted by war or by poverty or by indifference.