Watch and listen from the beginning up to the 7:56 minute point
Vocabulary:| TED:
Technology, Entertainment, Design indeed to spend one's life to look into presidents to wake up with Abraham Lincoln Franklin Delano Roosevelt meaning to keep wandering back to seminar to take graduate student Harvard University psychologist Erik Erikson taught richest and fullest lives to attempt to achieve an inner balance between three realms to pursue to the disregard of to open oneself to ultimate sadness in older age to pursue with equal dedication to make possible filled with achievement serenity to look back to illustrate a point Abraham Lincoln Lyndon Baines Johnson as for... sphere of work to suggest fierce ambition huge office power celebrity fame to accomplish worthy heroic dreams to escape hardscrabble farm schooling every spare moment of time King James Bible Aesop's Fables excited Emily Dickinson "There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away" link 2 how true for.. Europe Shakespeare's kings Merry England Lord Byron poetry Spain Portugal literature to allow one to to transcend surroundings losses early life to be haunted by death Sarah childbirth first love Ann Rutledge painting moreover to lie dying to hold out for someone the hope afterworld simply as a result to become obsessed with the thought to be swept away dust to dust only as...did he... consolation ancient Greek notion to be followed by other cultures as well to accomplish something worthy to live on in the memory of others honor reputation to outlive earthly existence worthy ambition lodestar to carry one through significant depression to suffer to combine to lay one low to break an engagement with Mary Todd not certain to be ready to to marry devastating intimate friend Joshua Speed Illinois Kentucky political career state legislature downward slide suicidal knives razors scissors to his side to rally would (past of will) human being to be fueled by to return eventually to win a seat in Congress |
to
run Senate to be broken by life Ernest Hemingway stronger to surprise the nation upset victory presidency experienced educated celebrated rivals general election to appoint Cabinet unprecedented act figurehead compared to most able to be in peril by my side noble tent to piss out/in to become clear undisputed captain unruly team unparalleled array emotional strengths political skills to prove far more important thinness external resume for one thing to possess uncanny to empathize with to repair injured feelings to escalate permanent hostility to share credit with ease to assume responsibility failure of subordinates to acknowledge one's errors to learn from one's mistakes quality candidates to refuse to be to be provoked petty grievances to submit to jealousy to brood over perceived slights to express unshakable convictions everyday language metaphors stories a beauty of language almost as if the Shakespeare and the poetry he had so loved as a child to work one's way into his very soul Emancipation Proclamation to sign the White House decades before to point in this measure my fondest hopes to be realized to be about to do s.t. to put one's signature one numb and shaking to shake hands New Year's reception to put the pen down to have one's soul in an act to sign posterity to hesitate to wait until he could to take up the pen bold and clear hand in his wildest dreams to imagine to reach far interview to be thrilled to Leo Tolstoy early nineteen hundreds trip remote area of the Caucasus wild barbarians Russia in their midst great men of history Napoleon Alexander the Great Frederick the Great Julius Caesar chief ruler to speak with the voice of thunder to laugh sunrise to travel to be stunned to make s.o. great general statesman to consist in historians to roundly agree integrity of one's character moral fiber of one's being in the end to carry s.o. through bleak laboriously to educate string of political failures darkest failures |
Listening
comprehension questions:
1. a.
What are the three realms between which we should try to strike an inner
balance, in order to lead a "rich" life? b.
What may happen if we neglect one or more of these realms? c.
What possible benefit is there to be gained from trying to balance these
three realms in our life pursuits?
2. What was Abraham Lincoln's main ambition
in life?
3. How did Lincoln escape the bleakness
of his childhood?
4. How did Lincoln believe he could
transcend death?
5. a.
What three things
came together to make Lincoln depressed
during his thirties? b.
How did Lincoln's friends try to protect him during this time?
7. How did Lincoln stun the nation after
he was surprisingly elected to the presidency?
8.
List
nine emotional strengths and political skills that Lincoln displayed as
president, as described by Goodwin in this talk.
9.
What impressed you most about
this talk?