Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[ebb]

Can you decipher this?

"Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play." Franklin D. Roosevelt
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"This is insolence up with which I will not put." Winston Churchill, upon reading a newspaper�s criticism of his having ended a sentence with a preposition.

"You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than with just a kind word." Al Capone.

[Brian Boyd]

He's comparing life to a play - a drama. Everyone sees themselves as the star of their own play - the play of their life. All the action centres around them, and they are the most important character in the story.

Roosevelt is saying that even though you might see yourself as very important, you should remember that to other people you are nothing more than an extra - a background character.

The message here is - try to remember that not everyone sees you as being as important as you see yourself. They're all too busy being the star of their own show!

Brian
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Comics for students ...

http://www.grammarmancomic.com

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[ebb]

Very nice Brian. Other views from our readers??

BTW, Interesting that it should come from someone who was arguably, at the time, the most powerful man in the world. ... (Well, there WAS that Hitler fellow, too..but I'm sure he never considered himself just an "extra" in anything..... ).....)

The stage metaphor was not unknown to FDR:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. Wm Shakespeare, As You Like It



As Oliver Wendall Holmes quipped about FDR:

A second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament.' )
_________________
"This is insolence up with which I will not put." Winston Churchill, upon reading a newspaper�s criticism of his having ended a sentence with a preposition.

"You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than with just a kind word." Al Capone.