July - Some Reflections

I will be celebrating this month, as I hope will many others, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Along with this huge event are some very important figures that made this event possible either directly or indirectly. I'm afraid I'm going to be subjecting you gentle readers to some of my favorite US historical figures and some of the important messages they gave that would lead us down the path to the moon landings, whether they could even imagine that possibility or not.


I'll start off with one my favorite presidents; Theodore Roosevelt. This quote is from remarks he made on April 23, 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds: who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."