It is oft said : “the best predictor of the future is the past”
At the current time I am focussing on studying the Roman Stoics of around 2000 years ago. Their teachings are so relevant today and also at any time.
This is a site focussed on leadership. Humility is a key characteristic of being a leader others choose to follow, so let us all have the humility and invest the time to study and learn from the great leaders of our past.
Going back only 78 years, we have one of the greatest orators and leaders of the 20th century, a man who literally changed the course of world history through his insights and, far more, by his bravery in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and almost universal opposition around him. That man is Winston Churchill.
The trailer for the recent movie breaks the rule of trailers in that it gives away moments of the end of the movie, but any student of WWII history would quickly know that this stunning speech would be the climax of the film.
What is brilliant about the film is the way it shows, over a short period leading up to Dunkirk, insights into the mind and state of being of Winston Churchill, including a short but hugely powerful scene, subtly delivered, of Churchill in a “black dog” moment, turning what could be a perceived weakness of depression and anxiety into a great strength that literally saved the world.
Now, though I love the “we shall fight them on the beaches” speech that was that climax to the movie (full transcript here, thanks to the International Churchill Society, I have one wartime speech from Churchill I love even more, and that is the one commonly known as “their finest hour”.
Again, from the same source, full transcript here. Do read the whole speech to get a sense of the way Churchill built the energy, then the closing passage follows, then an audio of the delivery.
“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.””