035: No man stands taller

“No man stands taller, than when he kneels to help another.” – Unknown

This was drawn by A. Kelly. Check out his work at his blog.

Because there seems to be so many different versions of this quote, including the version I came upon, I decided to have 4 panels describing the same thing, instead of just one.

My Version

I first came across this quote when I was in the army. It was on a statue’s plague at a military base. I can’t remember the exact words, but its meaning was about helping a fallen soldier. The statue I saw had two soldiers posed similar to what you see in the top left panel of the comic.

Combat medics the world over would have probably seen this version of the quote, or even a similar looking statue.

A statue like this

As I am no longer in the army, and do not have access to that particular military base, I can’t ever look at this statue again. Military bases are pretty strict on visitors and photo-taking anyway. I can’t look at the exact quote I saw anymore, so I decided to just use what I remembered. This is the version of the quote you see in the comic.

One alternative

The most obvious alternate version is from Lincoln.

“No man is so tall as when he stoops to help a child” – Abraham Lincoln

This is probably what you thought of when you saw this quote. Which is what you can see in the top right panel of the comic.

Other inspirations

The panel at the bottom right side of the comic was inspired by a real life event.

You might have seen this before

This article can tell you the full details. Basically, it was someone’s Facebook post about a store employee helping an elderly man tie his shoelaces.

It was a random act of kindness, but the internet loved and this picture and went viral when it first came out.

Closing

This quote has been something I have been wanting to put out for a long time. The statue I saw and the message it had struck a cord in my heart. The irony that “the tallest a man can stand is when he doesn’t” sounded so true to me. It made me realise that this is a life philosophy to live by.

Have you heard of this quote before? (Or one of it’s many versions?) Let me know in the comments below.

Of course, don’t forget to subscribe.