Saturday, March 9, 2013

Wisdom Of The Week

How can I hold that all men are created equal when here before me stands stinking the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio? Proof that some men are inferior. Endowed by their maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood. You are more reptile than man George, so low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you.

That's Thaddeus Stevens (Tom Lee Jones played his character brilliantly in the movie Lincoln).
Every since I saw the movie last year, those lines stood out more than anything else - it captures essence of that movie brilliantly. I don't think Stevens was debating nature vs nurture but it was just a blatant portrayal of who we are. So now read the quote again with one alteration:

How can I hold that all men are created equal when here before me stands stinking the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio? Proof that some men are inferior. Endowed by their maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood. You are more reptile than man George, so low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you.

I am sure we all have come across those gentlemen.




No comments: