Wikiquote looks into it:
It has been reported at various places on the internet that in JFK's Inaugural address, the famous line "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", was inspired by, or even a direct quotation of the famous and much esteemed writer and poet Khalil Gibran. Gibran in 1925 wrote in Arabic a line that has been translated as:
- Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?
- If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.
However, this translation of Gibran is one that occurred over a decade after Kennedy's 1961 speech, appearing in A Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran (1975) edited by Andrew Dib Sherfan, and the translator most likely drew upon Kennedy's famous words in expressing Gibran's prior ideas. A translation by Anthony R. Ferris in The Voice of the Master (1958) exists that could conceivably have been used as an inspiration, but it is less strikingly similar:
- Are you a politician who says to himself: "I will use my country for my own benefit"? If so, you are naught but a parasite living on the flesh of others. Or are you a devoted patriot, who whispers into the ear of his inner self: "I love to serve my country as a faithful servant." If so, you are an oasis in the desert, ready to quench the thirst of the wayfarer.
The title of Gibran's essay has been translated as The New Deal, or The New Frontier.
1 comment:
your post is informative and then I clicked on the 1975 translation...that is an awesome essay by Khalil Gibran!
should be required reading, thnx for sharing
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