A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from April 17, 2010
“Blood, toil, tears and sweat” (“Blood, sweat and tears”)

Entry in progress—B.P.
   
Wikipedia: Blood, toil, tears, and sweat
The famous phrase Blood, toil, tears and sweat was originally used by Theodore Roosevelt in an address to the Naval War College on June 2, 1897, following his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

However, the phrase became well known after a speech given by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 13 May 1940. Churchill, a keen soldier, was likely to have read works by Theodore Roosevelt, who was a widely published military historian; it is also possible he read the speech after being appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, a position similar to Roosevelt’s. It was Churchill’s first speech to the House after taking over as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the first year of World War II, having replaced Neville Chamberlain on 10 May.
 
Background
It was the first of three speeches which he gave during the period of the Battle of France. This speech (and the two others, the “We shall fight on the beaches” speech of 4 June and the “This was their finest hour” speech of 18 June) was a great inspiration to the embattled United Kingdom as it entered what was probably the most dangerous period of the entire war.
 
Excerpts
We are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history…. That we are in action at many points — in Norway and in Holland —, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean. That the air battle is continuous, and that many preparations have to be made here at home.
 
I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.
 
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs — Victory in spite of all terror — Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.
 
(Text transcription as originally read by Churchill)
 
The Yale Book of Quotations
Edited by Fred R. Shapiro
New Haven, CT: Yale Book of Quotations
2006
Pg 125:
George Gordon, Lord Byron
English poet, 1788-1824
“Year after year they voted cent per cent
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why?
for rent!”

“The Age of Bronze,” st. 14 (1823)
Pg. 152:
Winston Chuirchill
British statesman, 1874-1965
“Their sweat, their tears, their blood bedewed the endless plain.”
The Unknown War ch. 1 (1931)
“I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’”
Speech in House of Commons, 13 May 1940
Pg. 209:
John Donne
English poet and clergyman, 1572-1631
“Molify it with thy tears, or sweat, or blood.”
An Anatomy of the World l. 430 (1621)
Pg. 647:
Theodore Roosevelt
U.S. President, 1858-1919
“Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph.”
Speech at Naval War College, Newport, R.I., June 1897

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityGovernment/Law/Military/Religion /Health • Saturday, April 17, 2010 • Permalink


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