"He who stops trying to be better, stops being good."
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)
I hadn't come across this one before, and am a little sceptical as to whether it really was Old Ironsides (I can't source it) - but I like it.
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Well, I found a (somewhat breezy, unconvincing source) for it at the bottom of this page + top of the next:
Oliver Cromwell wrote on the blank page in the front of his most-used Bible: -- "He who stops being better, stops being good."
(from Church Year Sermons for Children (1917), by Phillips Endecott Osgood)
Cromwell is one of those British historical figures who confuses the heck out of Americans. (If you thought we were ill-informed about current events, just quiz us on those from 500 years ago.) I bet if you asked 100 of us what they know about him, at least 50 would guess he directed JFK, Platoon, etc.
Thanks, JES.
Fascinating figure, Cromwell, but hard to like; our 'Napoleon', in a way.
What I find most fascinating about that period (it was a special topic for my A-Level exam in History in the last year of high school) is the amazing upsurge of political radicalism that the Civil Wars engendered - probably surpassing that of the French Revolution, which was nearly 150 years later. There were groups like the Levellers and the Diggers espousing a kind of proto-Communism: all social distinctions to be swept away, all property to be held in common. There's a very good little book on these radical movements by Christopher Hill, called The World Turned Upside Down - one of the best things to read on the English Civil Wars; although it's really more about the history of ideas.
Cromwell eventually decided these groups were too dangerously subversive, and cracked down hard on some of them. A group of supposed ringleaders of The Levellers (I think) were arrested and detained in Burford church, in north Oxfordshire. One of them scratched his name in the lead around the edge of the font. It's still there today, the church and the inscription: ANTHONY SEDLEY - PRISNER. The next morning, Cromwell had them all shot.
Huh. I remember a book called The World Turned Upside Down, but that one was about the American Revolution -- maybe even specifically about the Yorktown battle in which Cornwallis surrendered to Washington... Hmm... *checking Amazon*
There's the one you mention, of course. There's a very interesting-looking science-fiction anthology. A more recent look at "the global battle over God, truth, and power"... a total of 170 hits on that exact phrase in Amazon's "Books" category.
Oh, and the one I remember is also there -- published in 1997. So I wasn't imagining it.
A 1960s "radical" group in the US -- actually a gang of activists, provocateurs, and street-theater types, not up to the dangerous level of the Weather Underground, say -- styled themselves the Diggers, after the English version. The only specific thing I remember about them: among their number was the future third(ish)-tier actor, Peter Coyote.
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