George Washington's Farewell Address

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the Executive Government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.

The acceptance of and continuance hitherto in the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this previous to the last election had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence impelled me to abandon the idea. I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that in the present circumstances of our country you will not disapprove my determination to retire.

Lincoln and Stanton

Edwin M. Stanton was a complex and driven man — who combined the moral certainty of an Old Testament prophet with the compulsion of a crusader: He served his country without fail during the Civil War as Secretary of War in Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. “His abilities were great and they were combative abilities. Whether because of his timidity, his ambition, or his fierce nervous ardor, he battled savagely,” wrote historian Allan Nevins, who noted that Stanton “had been a stubborn champion of the Union in the darkest months of its history. He had dealt with treason and stratagem without mercy. His patriotism was of the most unflinching kind.”

Fellow Lincoln cabinet member John Palmer Usher later wrote that Stanton “. . . was devoted to the cause he was striving to serve and gave all his energies to it. Night after night he remained in his office until a late hour and sometimes until daylight; not infrequently would his carriage be found standing at the door waiting for him when daylight came.” Stanton aide Albert E. H. Johnson recalled: “While President Lincoln in everything he did or said was to one purpose, the exercise of power within the scope of the constitution, Mr. Stanton was for saving the Union whether the constitution was saved or not, since war with him could brook no hampering or limiting bounds, and as he said, to save the constitution at the expense of the Union, would only result in destroying both. This point of view also greatly illustrated one of the many differences between the two men, Lincoln, having a heart greater than his head — the other, Stanton, having a head greater than his heart."

The Lincoln-Stanton partnership was an awkward one. “No two men were ever more utterly and irreconcilably unlike,” one of Stanton’s aides recalled decades after the Civil War. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote: “The secretiveness which Lincoln wholly lacked, Stanton had in marked degree; the charity which Stanton could not feel, coursed from every pore in Lincoln. Lincoln was for giving a wayward subordinate seventy times seven chances to repair his errors; Stanton was for either forcing him to obey or cutting off his head without more ado. Lincoln was as calm and unruffled as the summer sea in moment of the gravest peril.; Stanton would lash himself into a fury over the same condition of things. Stanton would take hardships with a groan. Lincoln would find a funny story to fit them. Stanton was all dignity and sternness, Lincoln all simplicity and good nature.”

Quotes from John Bunyan (Author of The Pilgrim's Progress)

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”

“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. ”

“What God says is best, though all the men in the world are against it.”

“Prayer will make a man cease from sin, and sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.”

“He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day.”

“Dark clouds bring living waters, where bright skies bring none.”

“One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.”

“I will stay in prison till the moss grows on my eyelids rather than disobey God.”

“Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.”

Brooksie (by Joe Posnanski)

Note: Brooks Robinson died today. I recall like it was yesterday watching him scoop up ball after ball in the 1970 World Series which I watched on our little black/white TV in the kitchen. He became one of my top 5 favorite ball players of all time. He was born in Little Rock and visited there on a regular basis, so when I moved to Arkansas in 1996 that was one of my goals, to meet the greatest third baseman who ever lived. That never happened but for all kind of other reasons that run together in my brain, I'm really sad that he no longer exists on the same planet as the rest of us humans. 

Here is what a professional writer, Joe Posnanski,  had to say on this subject:

"Dad’s favorite ballplayer was born left-handed. Think about that for a minute: Brooks Robinson, the best who ever played the hot corner, was born with the one physical quality that should have prevented him from ever playing third base. All his life he would do everything else left-handed — he shot a rifle lefty, he played tennis and ping pong lefty, he signed autographs left-handed.

When Davey Johnson saw his hero sign an autograph left-handed, he decided to try writing left-handed too, hoping it would make him into the same sort of heavenly defender.

It did not. But how could it?