Saturday, June 13, 2009

 

Cosmopolitan

Ronald Reagan (June 17, 1982, to United Nations General Assembly):
I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world.
Barack Obama (July 24, 2008, in Berlin, Germany):
Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.
Newt Gingrich (June 8, 2009, to Senate and House Republican campaign committees):
First, we must strengthen our unique American civilization. Let me be clear, I am not a citizen of the world. I think that the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous. There is no world sovereignty, there is no world system of law - there is in fact no circumstance under which I would like to be a citizen of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, or Russia. I am a citizen – I am a citizen of the United States of America.
Diogenes Laertius 6.63, on Diogenes the Cynic (tr. R.D. Hicks):
Asked where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world."

ἐρωτηθεὶς πόθεν εἴη, "κοσμοπολίτης," ἔφη.
Meleager (Greek Anthology 7.417, tr. W.R. Paton):
Island Tyre was my nurse, and Gadara, which is Attic but lies in Syria, gave birth to me. From Eucrates I sprung, Meleager, who first by the help of the Muses ran abreast of the Graces of Menippus. If I am a Syrian, what wonder? Stranger, we dwell in one country, the world; one Chaos gave birth to all mortals. In my old age I wrote these lines in my tablets before my burial; for eld and death are near neighbours. Speak a word to wish me, the loquacious old man, well, and mayst thou reach a loquacious old age thyself.

Νᾶσος ἐμὰ θρέπτειρα Τύρος· πάτρα δέ με τεκνοῖ
  Ἀτθὶς ἐν Ἀσσυρίοις ναιομένα, Γάδαρα·
Εὐκράτεω δ' ἔβλαστον ὁ σὺν Μούσαις Μελέαγρος
  πρῶτα Μενιππείοις συντροχάσας Χάρισιν.
εἰ δὲ Σύρος, τί τὸ θαῦμα; μίαν, ξένε, πατρίδα κόσμον
  ναίομεν· ἓν θνατοὺς πάντας ἔτικτε Χάος.
πουλυετὴς δ' ἐχάραξα τάδ' ἐν δέλτοισι πρὸ τύμβου·
  γήρως γὰρ γείτων ἐγγύθεν Ἀίδεω.
ἀλλά με τὸν λαλιὸν καὶ πρεσβύτην προτιειπὼν
  χαίρειν, εἰς γῆρας καὐτὸς ἵκοιο λάλον.
Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 2.10.3:
You are a citizen of the world.

πολίτης εἶ τοῦ κόσμου.



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