#ric

It is their mores, then, that make the Americans of the United States...capable of maintaining the rule of democracy.... Too much importance is attached to laws and too little to mores.... I am convinced that the luckiest of geographical circumstances and the best of laws cannot maintain a constitution in spite of mores, whereas the latter can turn even the most unfavorable circumstances...to advantage.... If I have not succeeded in making the reader feel the importance I attach to the practical experience of the Americans, to their habits, laws, and, in a word, their mores, I have failed in the main object of my work. -Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in American ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#constitution #liberty #morality #usa #values

I'm wondering whether I can explain," said Lee. "Where there is no likeness of experience it's very difficult. I understand you were not born in America." "No, in Ireland." "And in a few years you can almost disappear; while I, who was born in Grass Valley, went to school and several years to the University of California, have no chance of mixing." "If you cut your queue, dressed and talked like other people?" "No. I tried it. To the so-called whites I was still a Chinese, but an untrustworthy one; and at the same time my Chinese friends steered clear of me. I had to give it up. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#chinese-american #experience

He carried her over the Owl Creek mountain range without stopping,” he said, quietly this time. “He carried her until he reached one of the hot springs around what became Chapin, and then he walked into the water with her and held her there for three days. He had about given up when she opened her eyes and whispered his name. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#glass-girl #henry-whitmire #laura-anderson-kurk #love #meg-kavanagh

Mr. Gweta looked ten years younger than Professor Khupe had expected. His jet-black hair was trimmed so neatly that it would make a manicured golf course look scruffy. His face was exceptionally smooth, giving the impression that he had been born without skin pores and transitioned through puberty devoid of any facial hair to pockmark his countenance. Mr. Gweta’s face was perfectly symmetrical. An ant walking from one side to the other would experience a serious case of déjà vu. ↗

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

#flame-lily #great-zimbabwe #hangman #mystrey #parnormal

I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical facts that cannot be altered. ↗

— Moshe Sharett

#cannot #deceit #facts #generation #historical

Country music is the poetry of the American spirit. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#country-music #poetry #spirit #experience

How many times can a heart be shattered and still be pieced back together? How many times before the damage is irreparable? ↗

— Gwenn Wright

#death #grief #historical-fiction #loss #love

Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. ↗

— Anacharsis

#easily #hold #laws #like #only

No, no, no, Landemere. This time I'm putting my foot down. I mean it. Don't think you're going to smear syrup on my beard, as we say in Ramaldah. You're not making me change my mind by sweet talking me. I know your tricks, and I won't fall for them. ↗

— Andrew Ashling

#no #sayings-in-ramaldah #sweet-talking #talking-tricks #change

When ideas are detached from the media used to transmit them, they are also cut off from the historical circumstances that shape them, and it becomes difficult to perceive the changing context within which they must be viewed. ↗

— Elizabeth L. Eisenstein

#historical-perspective #media-studies #change