Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Four years ago, I was at a conference where I was asked to speak on what advice I would give if I were an adviser to the President of the United States. At that time, the conference was being held around the time that we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and Clint Eastwood, in one his more "politically correct" moves, had released the film Invictus, a movie about how Nelson Mandela had inspired the South African rugby team to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup that South Africa hosted. The name of the movie ostensibly comes from the poem that Mandela kept posted on his prison wall during his years of incarceration at Robben Island. The poem Invictus reads:
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
***
William Ernest Henley's poem undoubtedly did inspire Nelson Mandela for many, many years. And, in the context of the movie, it does seem to inspire the South African rugby team to an upset victory. But truth be told, the poem Invictus was not involved at all. No, the actual words of inspiration that powered the South African rugby team were not those of William Ernest Henley, but rather the words of Theodore Roosevelt and on that February day in 2010, I referenced the words of TR from a hundred years ago, as being the words of advice that I would give to the President of the United States, if such were to ever be. And on this day, four and half years later, I offer them to you all now.
Peace,
Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic"
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910
download PDF of complete speech
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
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