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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1745
AUTHOR: John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
QUOTATION: Try to raise a voice that shall be heard from here to Albany and watch what it is that comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father’s offering you a place in his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if any of you young gentlemen have a mind to get heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputation, and a close enemy of most men who wish you well.

And what will you get in return? Well, if I must for the benefit of the economists, charge you up with some selfish gain, I will say that you get the satisfaction of having been heard, and that this is the whole possible scope of human ambition.
ATTRIBUTION: JOHN JAY CHAPMAN, “The Unity of Human Nature,” address delivered before the Hobart Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Hobart College, Geneva, New York, on commencement day, June 20, 1900.—Chapman, Learning and Other Essays, p. 185 (1910, reprinted 1968).
SUBJECTS: Speaking out