I wish we could
give all our cowards a perpetual vacation. Let them go off and sit on
the side lines and see us play the game; and put them off the field if
they interfere with the game. They do nothing but harm, and they do it
by that most subtle and fatal thing of all, that of taking the momentum
and the spirit and the forward dash out of things. A man who is virtuous
and a coward has no marketable virtue about him. The virtue, I repeat,
which is merely self-defensive is not serviceable even, I suspect, to
himself. For how a man can swallow and not taste bad when he is a coward
and thinking only of himself I cannot imagine.
Be militant! Be an organization that is going to do things! If you can
find older men who will give you countenance and acceptable leadership,
follow them; but if you cannot, organize separately and dispense with
them. There are only two sorts of men worth associating with when
something is to be done. Those are young men and men who never grow old.
Now, if you find men who have grown old, about whom the crust has
hardened, whose hinges are stiff, whose minds always have their eye over
the shoulder thinking of things as they _were_ done, do not have
anything to do with them.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171