Motto and Maxim
The maxim of Rau was “to reconcile, not divide”.
As his personal motto, Rau adopted the Confessing Church dictum “teneo, quia teneor” (I hold because I am held).
In his acceptance speech after his election, Rau claimed “A patriot I will be” because “a patriot is someone who loves his fatherland, a nationalist is someone who despises the fatherlands of the others”. The quote can be attributed to the French writer Romain Gary.
Read more about this topic: Johannes Rau
Famous quotes containing the words motto and/or maxim:
“Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light which it is destined to receive thence.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water until he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)