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From Baccalaureate address, University of Buffalo, May 23, 1943 (Samuel P. Capen Papers, 1894-1955, 4/7/19, #24.3):
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Call the roll, in your own minds, of the great figures who have led the people by word and deed in every past crisis of our national life from the founding of the Republic... If any single word will describe the quality that all had in common, that word is nobility; nobility of behavior in time of stress, nobility of utterance.
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photograph of Walter P. Cooke handing over the "keys to the Universtiy" at Samuel Capen's inauguration, October 1922
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From University Day address, University of Buffalo, February 22, 1928 (Samuel P. Capen Papers, 1894-1955, 4/7/19, #21.10):
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Have you ever reflected on the substance behind great legends? Legends, of course, are always untrue in part. But they are always profoundly true at their core. They do not arise spontaneously on no foundation. When all the tests of modern scholarship have been applied to the great legends of the world, religious, historical or personal, always there is uncovered at their base a stratum of incontrovertible fact. The superficial details are often -- indeed generally -- the sheerest fancy. But something must first exist that challenges the wonder of mankind before the imagination begins its work of elaboration.
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University Archives home » Online Exhibits » Capen: University Man » Quoting Capen » On the role of a leader...
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