Joseph Addison Quotes
What pity it is That we can die but once for our country!
Compare Nathan Hale's last words.
Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, English Secretary of State (Whig), Cato, iv
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
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}
Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Quintus Horatius Flaccus. This famous quotation has been echoed in virtually every language and every country of the world. However, see Ernest Hemingway for a counter view.
The Poles were fighting the Russians. Pulaski was a Field Marshall. This was before he had come to America and fought in the American Revolution.
Ataturk had been a military hero, but was very much opposed to war and military adventurism not unlike the Dwight Eisenhower and Colin Powell type leaders. However, the one thing that he thought worth the sacrifice of his own and other Turkish lives was Turkish independence and sovereignty. Historically, the Ottoman Empire which Ataturk finally ended, had dominated half of Europe and all of the Mid East at the cost of sovereignty of other nations and Ataturk saw no more important virtue with dying for than national sovereignty. See {125322} and {584501}.
Even as he was being executed for his many war crimes, the Field Marshal exhibited the mental perspective of Germanic patriotism that had brought Europe as well as Germany itself so much death and ruin.
Saloth Sar Pol Pot. He was responsible for the brutal killing of over 1 million of his own people.
Ataturk was a young major at the time commanding troops of a weak and corrupt Ottoman regime. However a combined English and French (the strongest military powers in Europe) invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula threatened to capture the Turkish capital, Constantinople. Ataturk alone rallied the Turkish defenders and fought the invaders to a standoff in long drawn out battle with huge casualties on both sides. Ataturk became a national hero. Although Ataturk thereafter was very reluctant to use military force or endanger troops, the thing he always thought worth the supreme sacrifice (including his own) was the independence and sovereignty of the nation. See {584502} for his continuing belief in this type of sacrifice.
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.
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine. His simple prose style marked the end of the mannerisms and conventional classical images of the 17th century.
