Joel Roberts Poinsett (March 2, 1779 – December 12, 1851) was an American physician, botanist and statesman. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives, the first United States Minister to Mexico (the United States did not appoint ambassadors until 1896), a U.S. Secretary of War under Martin Van Buren, and a cofounder of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts (a predecessor of the Smithsonian Institution), as well as the eponym of Poinsett County, Arkansas; Poinsett Highway, Poinsett Bridge, and Poinsett State Park in South Carolina; Lake Poinsett in South Dakota; and the poinsettia, a popular Christmas flower.
Read more about Joel Roberts Poinsett: Early Travels, Chile and Argentina, Return To The U.S., Political Career, Later Life
Famous quotes containing the words joel and/or roberts:
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
—Bible: Hebrew Isaiah, 2:4.
The words reappear in Micah 4:3, and the reverse injunction is made in Joel 3:10 (”Beat your plowshares into swords ...”)
“The great God endows His children variously. To some he gives intellect—and they move the earth. To some he allots heart—and the beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a soul, without intelligence—and these, who never grow up, but remain always His children, are God’s fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as if from His palette the Artist of all had taken one color instead of many.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)