President Obama's Favorite "Quote"



The Oval Office

 A new rug (2010) in President Barack Obama's Oval Office contains 5 famous quotations woven into its curved edge, including this line from Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "How Long? Not Long!" and "Where Do We Go From Here?" speeches:

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Listen to the conclusion of the "How Long?  Not Long!" Speech

delivered at the end of The Selma to Montgomery March

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAYITODNvlM (2:00)

In David Remnick's biography (published in 2010) of Barack Obama, "The Bridge," he attributes Dr. Martin Luther King's famous quote as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation."  The only problem is that they are not exactly Dr. King's words!  Dr. King often paraphrased and quoted these words (and he made no secret of it) from a long-dead abolitionist he deeply admired named Theodore Parker.

Theodore Parker

1810-1860

Who was Theodore Parker?  He was a Boston abolitionist and reformer (whose grandfather had led The Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington) who predicted the end of slavery in 1850 when he wrote:

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one.  My eye reaches but little ways.  I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight.  I can divine it by conscience.  And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." 

Another familiar quote from Abraham Lincoln woven into President Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people"...the well-known utterance from the close of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 1863. Interestingly in 1850, Parker wrote, 

"A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people."

Clearly, two of President Obama's favorite quotes come directly from Theodore Parker!  

If you were President what quotes would you put on the rug in the Oval Office?!? 

Footnote #1: MLK finished the "How Long? Not Long!" speech with words from the Battle Hymn of the Republic - a Union Civil War Anthem!

Footnote #2: MLK stood where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the CSA.

Footnote #3: Another great Theodore Parker (1853) quote..."The domestic function of the woman does not exhaust her powers... To make one half of the human race consume its energies in the functions of housekeeper, wife and mother is a monstrous waste of the most precious material God ever made."