Thomas Hart Benton Quotes
Where could death have found him but at the post of duty.
Adams, after his presidency, served in the House of Representatives for many years. He collapsed at his desk in the House and died in the Speaker’s office.
Thomas Hart Benton, 1782-1858, U. S. Senator & U. S. Congressman (Democrat, MO), Eulogy on the death of John Quincy Adams, 1767-1848, 6th President of the United States (Independent, MA)
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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}
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.
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}.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Compare Nathan Hale's last words.
The following day she was assassinated.
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States. His work is strongly associated with the Midwestern United States, the region in which he was born and which he called home for most of his life. He also studied in Paris, lived in New York City for more than 20 years and painted scores of works there, summered for 50 years on Martha's Vineyard off the New England coast, and also painted scenes of the American South and West.
