Matt,

Thank you for directing your readers to my Truth Alert on the misspelled words matter. In regards to the Julius Caesar quote, that was called to my attention last night. I'm putting a Truth Alert about that on my website, too. But it doesn't detract from the fact that the words themselves are powerful and true and beautifully written. Whoever wrote this is damn talented and should be writing their own play.

Here are two other quotes that impress me, and I've thoroughly checked out their authenticity so I don't buy into another terrific but internet-generated statement.

"THOSE WHO MAKE PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IMPOSSIBLE WILL MAKE VIOLENT REVOLUTION INEVITABLE" John F. Kennedy

"TO ANNOUNCE THAT THERE MUST BE NO CRITICISM OF THE PRESIDENT, OR THAT WE ARE TO STAND BY THE PRESIDENT, RIGHT OR WRONG, IS NOT ONLY UNPATRIOTIC AND SERVILE, BUT IS MORALLY TREASONABLE TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC." Theodore Roosevelt

The full context of that one (an article Theodore Roosevelt wrote for the Kansas City Star during World War I) is just as fascinating, by the way, and I'm including it below in case you have time to read it:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile."

It then incorporates the passage I mentioned above and concludes with:

"Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

Barbra Streisand