Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive; a system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in

I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be. It's wonderful to have someone like that around, you always feel you can count on them. You can go away and come back, you can change your mind and your hairdo and your politics, and when you get through doing all these upsetting things, you look around and there they are, just the way they were, just being.

Elizabeth Janeway

Finally, the ecological health of the Mississippi River and its economic importance to the many people that make their living or seek their recreation is based on a healthy river system.

Ron Kind

No place in England where everyone can go is considered respectable.

George Moore

It is a happy thing that there is no royal road to poetry. The world should know by this time that one cannot reach Parnassus except by flying thither.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can. And I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Abraham Lincoln

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for adapting to its environment.

Herbert Simon

People are rapidly losing hope and trust. They believe their government has been captured by special interests and no longer cares about them, and they are right.

Marcy Kaptur

Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.

Marcus Aurelius

A crown, golden in show is but a wreath of thorns.

John Milton

The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret.

Fred A. Allen

My sisters both are working mothers. I understand that my being an actress as well as being at home isn't some heroic thing. That doesn't mean it isn't confusing or difficult - especially that question of how you find a balance.

Jennifer Garner