美国20世纪伟大的100篇演讲Ted Kennedy - Eulogy for Robert Kennedy
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    AmericanRhetoric.com


    Edward M. Kennedy:
    Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy


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    Text
    version below
    transcribed
    directly
    from
    audio

    Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President:

    On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert
    Kennedy, I want
    to
    express what we feel
    to
    those who mourn with us today in this Cathedral and around the
    world.


    We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and as a son. From his parents, and from his
    older brothers and sisters Joe
    and Kathleen and Jack he
    received an
    inspiration which he
    passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty,
    and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side.


    Love is not an easy feeling to put
    into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But
    he was all of
    these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely.

    A few years back, Robert Kennedy wrote some
    words about his own
    father which expresses
    the way we in his family felt about
    him. He said
    of what
    his father meant
    to
    him, and I quote:
    "What
    it really all adds up to is love not
    love as it
    is described with such facility in popular
    magazines, but
    the kind of love that is affection
    and respect, order and encouragement, and
    support. Our awareness of this was an incalculable source of strength, and because real
    love
    is something unselfish and involves sacrifice and giving, we could not
    help but profit from it."
    And he continued, "Beneath
    it all, he has tried to engender a social conscience. There were
    wrongs which needed attention. There were people who were poor and needed
    help. And we
    have a responsibility to
    them and to
    this country. Through no
    virtues and accomplishments of
    our own, we have been fortunate enough
    to be born
    in the United States under the most
    comfortable conditions. We,
    therefore,
    have a responsibility to others who are less well off."


    That is what Robert
    Kennedy was given. What
    he leaves to
    us is what
    he said, what he did,
    and what he stood for. A speech he made to the young people of South
    Africa on
    their Day of
    Affirmation
    in 1966 sums it
    up the best, and I would like to read it now:

    "There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments
    repress their people. millions are trapped
    in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth
    is
    lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but
    they are the common works
    of man. They reflect
    the imperfection of human
    justice, the inadequacy of human
    compassion,
    our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember even
    if only for a time that
    those who live with
    us are our brothers. that
    they share with
    us
    the same short moment of life. that
    they seek as
    we do
    nothing
    but
    the chance to live
    out
    their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment
    they can.


    Transcription by
    Michael
    E. Eidenmuller. Copyright Status: Restricted, seek permission.
    Page
    1



    AmericanRhetoric.com


    Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin
    to
    teach
    us
    something.
    Surely, we
    can learn, at
    least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And
    surely we can begin
    to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in
    our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. The answer is to
    rely on youth not
    a
    time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance
    of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and
    obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not
    yield to the obsolete dogmas and outworn
    slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who
    prefer the illusion of security to the excitement
    and danger that come with
    even
    the most
    peaceful progress.

    It
    is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world has
    had
    thrust
    upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.
    Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against
    the enormous array of
    the world's ills. Yet
    many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed
    from the work of a single man. A young monk began
    the Protestant reformation. a young
    general extended an empire from Macedonia to
    the borders of the earth. a young woman
    reclaimed the territory of France. and it was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New
    World, and the 32 yearold
    Thomas Jefferson who
    claimed that
    "all men are created equal."


    These men moved the world, and so can we all.
    Few will
    have the greatness to bend history
    itself, but
    each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all
    those
    acts will
    be written
    the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of
    courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each
    time a man stands up for an ideal, or
    acts to
    improve the lot of others, or strikes out
    against
    injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of
    hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring,
    those
    ripples build a current
    that can
    sweep down
    the
    mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

    Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the
    wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great
    intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that
    yields most painfully to
    change.
    And I believe that in
    this generation
    those with the courage to
    enter the moral
    conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.


    For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of
    personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the
    privilege of education. But
    that is not
    the road history has marked out
    for us. Like it or not,
    we live in
    times of danger and uncertainty. But
    they are also
    more open
    to the creative energy
    of men
    than any other time in
    history. All of us will
    ultimately be judged, and as the years
    pass we will
    surely judge ourselves on the effort we have contributed to building a new world
    society and the extent
    to which our ideals and goals
    have shaped that event.

    The future does not belong to those who are content with
    today, apathetic toward common
    problems and their fellow
    man alike, timid and fearful
    in the face of new
    ideas and bold
    projects. Rather it will belong to those who can
    blend vision, reason and courage in a personal
    commitment
    to
    the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.


    Transcription by
    Michael
    E. Eidenmuller. Copyright Status: Restricted, seek permission.
    Page
    2



    AmericanRhetoric.com


    Our future may lie beyond our vision, but
    it is not completely beyond our control. It is the
    shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history,
    but the work of our own
    hands, matched to reason and principle,
    that will determine our
    destiny. There is pride in
    that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any
    event, it is the only way we can live."

    That is the way he lived. That
    is what
    he leaves us.

    My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what
    he was in life, to be
    remembered simply as a good and decent
    man,
    who saw wrong and tried to right
    it, saw
    suffering and tried to
    heal
    it, saw war and tried to stop it.

    Those of us who loved him and who take him to
    his rest
    today, pray that what
    he was to
    us
    and what he wished for others will
    some day come to pass for all the world.


    As
    he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought
    to
    touch
    him:

    "Some men see things as they are and say why.
    I dream things that never were and say why not."


    Transcription by
    Michael
    E. Eidenmuller. Copyright Status: Restricted, seek permission.
    Page
    3


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