“…only if you have been in the deepest valley…”

We think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat that all is ended. We think, as T.R. (Theodore Roosevelt) said, that the light had left his life forever.

Not true. It is only a beginning, always. The young must know it; the old must know it. It must always sustain us, because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

And so I say to you on this occasion, as we leave, we leave proud of the people who have stood by us and worked for us and served this country.

We want you to be proud of what you have done. We want you to continue to serve in government, if that is your wish. Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

And so, we leave with high hopes, in good spirit, and with deep humility, and with very much gratefulness in our hearts. I can only say to each and every one of you, we come from many faiths, we pray perhaps to different gods – but really the same God in a sense -but I want to say for each and every one of you, not only will we always remember you, not only will we always be grateful to you but always you will be in our hearts and you will be in our prayers.

Thank you very much.

Richard Nixon

Damian & I tussle over this sort of thing, but if someone can find something wise & inspirational that Hitler once said, I’ll argue his corner too.

Nobody is all good or all bad. We are all a mess of the grey in between.

What struck me as I watched the footage linked here, is that he seemed a good deal more accountable than most of today’s “politicians”. I’m not arguing that he was not a wrong’un, just that our standards seem to have declined rapidly since then, towards Kakistocracy, particularly here in Dear Old Blighty.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash