Samuel Langdon Quotes
In every state, good or bad, there will be a number of restless, subtle, crafty, turbulent and ungovernable spirits; who by writings and intrigues, will be exciting discontent and stirring up mischief: and will molest and embarrass the best as well as the worst administration.
Samuel Langdon, 1723-1797, President, Harvard University, Election sermon, Massachusetts Bay Colony Congress, Watertown, MA, May 31, 1775
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She was found guilty of treason because she had passed out leaflets criticizing the Nazi regime on a university campus. The non violent resistance tactics were so threatening to the Nazi German regime that Sophia and other members were executed by beheading as a particularly harsh example.
This became a critically important quotation a half century after it was made. Judge Hand articulated the majority Western and Judeo-Christian value proposition between dissent and heresy. However, for the majority of the Islamic world, the reverse represents the majority value that is held. There is a minority in the West that agrees that avoidance of heresy is paramount and a minority of the Muslim world that agrees that the protection of dissent is the more important value, but the two civilizations were at odds in the 20th and 21st centuries. However, Islam is about 600 years younger than Christianity. 600 years ago, the Christian world agreed with the Muslim society and prevention of heresy was the more important value. The Reformation and the enlightenment followed by the world example of America produced a transformation and this may occur in the majority of the Islamic world in time.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. Twain was a much sought after public speaker in an era before TV and radio. Some speeches like this he delivered many times in many places.
Louis Napoleon had seized control of France and had very little popular support amongst the aristocracy and middle class. However, the Socialists leading the uprisings frightened them more than Louis Napoleon as the Socialists had the support of the peasants who resented the abuses of the aristocracy and many of the middle class. This was true class warfare and not at all what was possible in the United States when American conservatives would claim “class warfare” when there was a move for more progressive taxation. In Europe, class warfare really meant death and destruction, so for many who knew the history, the claim of “class warfare” was frightening and a large part of the “Red Scare” in the United States.
Vladimir Lenin. Lenin’s argument seems reasonable, except if there is one party, and all privileges of the society require party membership as was the case in Soviet Russia, then anyone who speaks or writes contrary to party doctrine, can lose almost everything but his life if he is then ejected from the party. So freedom of speech became a stated principle which in Russia was a practical myth. Under Stalin, he didn’t even follow any principle of freedom of speech, and many Russians lost their lives for what they said.
The poem was in a dialect. “Gret” was “great” and “pint” was “point”.
Samuel Langdon was an American Congregational clergyman and educator. After serving as pastor in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he was appointed president of Harvard University in 1774. He held that post until 1780.
