ARCHIMEDES - The original WORLD LEVER™
In respect to Archimedes (287 - 212 BC), as Father of the thought, the thought that just keeps on giving. "Give me a place to stand, a fulcrum and a lever long enough, and I will move the earth".
The first to conceptualize the idea - ARCHIMEDES is the original WORLD LEVER.
Levers can be used to exert a large force over a small distance at one end
by exerting only a small force over a greater distance at the other.
Levers can be used to lift the spirit of man.
Martin Luther King, Jr."I Have a Dream" is a profound lever.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American Author and Revolutionary
"The Rights of Man".
"What Archimedes said of the mechanical powers, may be applied to Reason and Liberty. "Had we," said he, "a place to stand upon, we might raise the world."
The revolution of America presented in politics what was only theory in mechanics. So deeply rooted were all the governments of the old world, and so effectually had the tyranny and the antiquity of habit established itself over the mind, that no beginning could be made in Asia, Africa, or Europe, to reform the political condition of man. Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, - and all it wants, - is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription to distinguish him from darkness; and no sooner did the American governments display themselves to the world, than despotism felt a shock and man began to contemplate redress.
The independence of America, considered merely as a separation from England, would have been a matter but of little importance, had it not been accompanied by a revolution in the principles and practice of governments. She made a stand, not for herself only, but for the world, and looked beyond the advantages herself could receive."
http://www.constitution.org/tp/rightsman2.htm
