Harinder Baines Quotes
I did what every American would have done. My neighbor would have done the same thing—Any Jewish, Christian, Sikh, Muslim…. I'm not a hero, the cops are the hero.
Reilly, Katie. "Sikh Deli Owner Who Spotted Chelsea Bombing Suspect: 'I'm Not a Hero'." Time, Time Inc., 20 Sept. 2016.
This quotation might have been an inspiration for the famous JFK quotation {589867}. See Khalil Gibran {601423}, Warren G. Harding {622594} and {629021}, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. {603707} for similar sentiments. Holmes preceded Broderick by a few years, but Broderick came closest to the Kennedy phraseology.
This may be Kennedy’s most famous line. However he was not the first orator to express this idea however. See Khalil Gibran {601423}, Warren G. Harding {622594} and {629021}, St. John Broderick {595734}, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. {603707} for earlier expressions of similar sentiments. Holmes seems to be the first to express the idea while the earliest seems similar phraseology seems to be the British Politician St. John Broderick in 1893 {595734}. Although, these earlier expressions existed, Theodore C. Sorensen, who assisted Kennedy with this speech and wrote the draft, had distilled it from earlier expressions and views of JFK and said that these were Kennedy’s words. At the time, he stated that was unaware of the Gibran, Harding, Broderick and Holmes sentiments. Gibran had not yet even been translated into English. However it is not clear whether Kennedy himself had inadvertently recollected the phrase from any of the other quotations. (The question was never put to him.) The St. John Broderick quotation is a possible source. Kennedy was quite familiar with British political history, and his father and been U. S. Ambassador to Great Britain. Regardless, the quotation was as great for the place and timing—his inaugural—as it was for the phraseology which might have originated elsewhere.
This is a precursor to the famous JFK inaugural address quotation. See also, Khalil Gibran {601423} and Warren G. Harding {622594} and {629021}.
Joseph Addison had earlier written of such a situation. Recent research has strongly suggested that Hale may never have said these words. The American patriots wanted to have heroes and may not have been too worried about the documentation and historical research. See {621112}
Russell despised the Commission Chairman, Chief Justice Earl Warren and had refused to serve. Johnson changed Russell's mind. See Richard B. Russell.
Bassi was one of the unique military chaplains in history. Instead of just ministering to the men spiritually, he marched at the head of the Italian revolutionary Army and was wounded in combat. Although he never carried arms, he was executed along with those who did.
He was the man who recognized a wanted terrorist—Ahmad Kahn Rahami—sleeping in the doorway of his establishment and called the police.
