Lincoln sees American democracy as a last stand, what he calls the last, best hope. And if this goes down, we may so discredit the whole notion of democracy that no one will ever want to go this way again, and so this is the test. It's a test of whether or not we'll have this new birth of freedom, if we'll finally shuck off these last husks of aristocracy and move forward in the direction of democracy. That for him is the vital issue.
Allen C. GuelzoRelated topics
aristocracy best birth direction discredit forward freedom hope last move off stand vital way LincolnRelated quotes
I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort to death the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires and expires, too soon, too soon before life itself.
Joseph Conrad
If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: «It's gonna go wrong.» Or «She's going to hurt me.» Or, «I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore ...» Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul.
Albert Szent-Györgyi
To grow may require that we be shaken right to our core. While kneeling on that roadside in Herat, something died within me, giving birth to a realization necessary for me to move forward on my path. With each step, a camel lifts its hoof from a stable place on earth in order to move forward. And to reach the sea, each ripple of the river must let go of its present state to surrender to the current.
Radhanath Swami
The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.
Ayn Rand