There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.

But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.

Alfred North Whitehead

It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe.

Samuel Johnson

Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house.

C.S. Lewis

The answers are what they are. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they aren't true.

Megan Chance

You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses.

Bruce Springsteen

When you put your total faith in God, no matter what happens, to a person who's a true believer, if you die, you know you're going to heaven to be with God.

Jim Bakker

This body, full of faults, has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions.

Siddha Nagarjuna

While history never repeats itself, political patterns do.

Eric Alterman

Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.

Jean Paul

Hanging is too good for him said Mr. Cruelty.

John Bunyan

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.

Allan Bloom

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

Milan Kundera