“It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy.”
John Sidney McCain III was a United States Naval Academy graduate, an American war hero, a prisoner of war, a statesman, a husband, and a father.
He passed away, August 25, at 16:28 MST, with his wife and family beside him, at his home in Cornville, Arizona, four days before his 82nd birthday.
These are some of my favorite John McCain quotes that I share as a way to honor him:
- “Americans Never Quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We Make History.”
- “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity for action despite our fears.”
- “Respect for the God-given dignity of every human being, no matter their race, ethnicity or other circumstances of their birth, is the essence of American patriotism. To believe otherwise is to oppose the very idea of America.”
- “People have come to this country from everywhere, and people from everywhere have made America great.”
- “When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.”
- “In this country, we believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential, from the boy whose descendants arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers.”
- “No just cause is futile, even if it’s lost, if it helps make the future better than the past.”
- “I don’t believe in destiny. We are not born to become one thing or another, left to follow helplessly a course that was charted for us by some unseen hand, a mysterious alignment of the stars that pulls us in a certain direction, bestowing happiness on some and misfortune on others.”
- “We must be true to ourselves. And we must be true to others, whether they believe we are or not.”
And finally,
“Our character is a lifelong project, and perhaps the older we are, and the more fixed our shortcomings are, the more we can use inspiration to encourage our escape from the restraints of our deficiencies.”Originally published at medium.com