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Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

"President Wilson's Addresses"


Because the longer I occupy the office that I now occupy the more I
regret any lines of separation; the more I deplore any feeling that one
set of men has one set of interests and another set of men another set
of interests; the more I feel the solidarity of the Nation--the
impossibility of separating one interest from another without
misconceiving it; the necessity that we should all understand one
another, in order that we may understand ourselves.
There is an illustration which I have used a great many times. I will
use it again, because it is the most serviceable to my own mind. We
often speak of a man who cannot find his way in some jungle or some
desert as having "lost himself." Did you never reflect that that is the
only thing he has not lost? _He_ is _there_. He has lost the rest of the
world. He has no fixed point by which to steer. He does not know which
is north, which is south, which is east, which is west; and if he did
know, he is so confused that he would not know in which of those
directions his goal lay. Therefore, following his heart, he walks in a
great circle from right to left and comes back to where he started--to
himself again.


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