Martin Sheen Receives Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from the University of Dayton

[@LoveABun]

What an amazing human being. He takes my breath away! He mesmerizes me. He makes me want to do BETTER!

[@universityofdayton]

Sheen did tell students and faculty after the speech that the lines were from Tagore, and that he intended to credit the poet but inadvertently left it out. Thank you for mentioning it and sharing the Tagore credit with the viewers of this video.

[@Shazzadut1]

I love Martin Sheen. An intelligent, articulate man who has been an activist for decades, when it was unfashionable to be one. Plus one of the greatest actors ever. A humble man, who has been through his own crises in life, his own addictions and his own highs and lows.

[@pierreroche8337]

Congratulations Dr Ramon Estevez, Martin Sheen, beyond acting you acted great and managed wonderful operations such as those along with Sea Shepherd and Paul Watson! Thank you! You really deserve this honor!

[@zmania22]

Can we, for one moment, appreciate the fact that this is the same doctorate from the same school, honorary and all, that was given to Jed Bartlet, his character in the West Wing? My point is, MARTIN SHEEN FOR PRESIDENT

[@orlandomadrid9112]

In respectful reply to the earlier comments, are we certain he is familiar with those texts? Or are we noticing similarities - be they close - that may be explained through a shared emotion expressed through language? He is clearly a sensitive and lyrical individual, as able to express widely held notions without resorting to plagiarism as he is in quoting from Bobby Kennedy's 1966 address to students in South Africa. How many different ways are there of expressing kindred sentiments? Perhaps he may not fully realize when some of his words spring from a text he read long ago he doesn't quite recall where. Our languages are peppered with borrowed expressions.

[@sidkere7493]

Orlando Madrid As the note from University of Dayton states above, Sheen did tell the students and faculty later that his last quote was from Tagore; but he inadvertently omitted the poet's name during the speech. The passage is too long and too identical to the original to have been a mere coincidence resulting from 'shared emotion expressed through language.' For the original of Tagore's verse see the web site - www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/174937.

[@orlandomadrid9112]

Sid Kere, thank you for correcting me with such grace. Often absent from online posts.

[@sidkere7493]

Orlando Madrid Your are welcome!

[@sidkere7493]

When I heard Martin Sheen on news radio, I recognized the last part of his speech (starting at 11:05) as a quote from the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, a book of song offerings, first published in 1913, the year Tagore was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. The quote is from song 35 with only slight changes in the first and last lines. Although earlier in his talk Sheen attributes a quote to Robert F Kennedy, I am puzzled by no mention of Tagore before his words were so dramatically delivered. Perhaps Sheen’s speech writer is to blame?

[@michaelbinder7401]

1:37 I thought that was mrs. Landingham at first

[@Anthony-nq4ki]

Ramon Estevez never really changed his name legally to his screen name Martin Sheen. Martin and his two sons are all great actors.

[@balakuntalamsridhar5789]

I too was quite intrigued to hear parts of Tagore's poem: "Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.." without any attribution. Hopefully the University of Dayton will take note of it. He also borrowed words from Oscar Wilde's character Lord Darlington, who describes a cynic as: 'a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.' A few years ago I had to deliver a commencement speech. I was very careful to make sure the authors whose didactic stories I had based my speech on, were duly credited. As educators we should be role models and stay away from even a whiff of plagiarism.

[@saintjabroni]

Gordon Bombay's dad.