Final Public Words and Thoughts
Developed and polished over the course of the last five of his 63 years of public service, Admiral Rickover's final public remarks after his retirement included a lecture in May 1982 at the Morgenthau Memorial Lecture series under the auspices of the Carnegie Council ("The Voice for Ethics in International Policy").
In his lecture, titled Thoughts On Man's Purpose in Life, Rickover presented his crucible, summary comments on the subject for the audience's careful consideration. Drawing upon wide-ranging philosophers and dignitaries such as Voltaire, Emerson, Sir Thomas More, Robert Browning, President Theodore Roosevelt, Justice Louis Brandeis, Aristotle and Martin Luther, as well as extracts from the I Ching, Rickover presented some of the fundamentally guiding thoughts and beliefs that he had acquired during his lifetime.
Rickover's core comments centered around the thoughts that "principles of existence — responsibility, perseverance, excellence, creativity, courage — must be wedded to intellectual growth and development if we are to find meaning and purpose in our lives" and that "a final principle of existence essential to man's purpose in life is the development of standards of ethical and moral conduct."
Earnest in pointing out the triumph of action over thoughts alone, Rickover's comments included the following:
"Man has a large capacity for effort. In fact it is so much greater than we think it is that few ever reach this capacity. We should value the faculty of knowing what we ought to do and having the will to do it. Knowing is easy; it is the doing that is difficult. The critical issue is not what we know but what we do with what we know. The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. I believe that it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him ... we must live for the future, not for our own comfort or success."
He closed his remarks at the lecture with a question and answer period that addressed various aspects of Rickover's public service record, opinions, philosophies and anticipation for the future.
Read more about this topic: Hyman G. Rickover
Famous quotes containing the words final, public, words and/or thoughts:
“The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The future of America may or may not bring forth a black President, a woman President, a Jewish President, but it most certainly always will have a suburban President. A President whose senses have been defined by the suburbs, where lakes and public baths mutate into back yards and freeways, where walking means driving, where talking means telephoning, where watching means TV, and where living means real, imitation life.”
—Arthur Kroker (b. 1945)
“Overworked assonance, nonsense,
juxtaposition of words for words’ sake
without meaning, undefined; imposition,
deception, indecisive weather-vane;
disagreeable, inconsequent syllables,
too malleable, too brittle.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“But to let such dangers pass,
Which a lover’s thoughts disdain,
‘Tis enough in such a place
To attend love’s joys in vain.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)