words arranged well
…we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred convictions that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them as every man with a heart must respect those who give all for their belief.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Memorial Day,” (1884)
Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958)
I take as my guide the hope of a saint: in crucial things, unity—in important things, diversity—in all things, generosity.
George H.W. Bush, inaugural address (1989)
Note: The Washington Post noted that Bush was probably paraphrasing Richard Baxter, a 17th century Puritan dissident from the Anglican Church: “In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.” )
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln, second inaugural address (1865)
Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.
Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address (1801)
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Abraham Lincoln, first inaugural address (1861)
One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.
George Washington, “Farewell Address” (1796)
Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle.
Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address (1801)
In every land there are always at work forces that drive men apart and forces that draw men together. In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we all go down, as one people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, second inaugural address (1937)
Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character. You’re too good for schadenfreude, you’re too good for gossip and snark, you’re too good for intolerance—and since you’re walking into the middle of a presidential election, it’s worth mentioning that you’re too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy.
Aaron Sorkin, Syracuse Commencement Address (2012)
quotiddly 