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Voluptuary or Hotspur?

While a few days past 9/11, I thought it fitting to provide a quote from one of the great Americans, Teddy Roosevelt.  Known informally as The Man in the Arena, it is an excerpt of a larger speech called Citizen in a Republic which he delivered in 1910.  While many are familiar with the first part, the second speaks to me as loudly as the first.

Today I ask that you read and ask yourself which part describes your life and actions.  While many people profess to be of integrity, honor, and courage, it is unfortunate that some are not as they profess.

Are you “war warn Hotspur” who is “in the arena” and who “rides the storm and quells the thunder”? or are you “the critic”, “the cynic”, the fop, the voluptuary”, or the “the cold and timid soul” who “but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier”?

In these uncertain economic times, and while facing challenging world events it is important to strive valiantly and not give up hope.

“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.

Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who “but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.”"