#state

And the looks on the faces of my countrymenpassive heads bent arms at their trousers everyone guilty of not being their best of not earning their daily bread the kind of docility I had never expected from Americans even after so many years of our decline. Here was the tiredness of failure imposed on a country that believed only in its opposite. Here was the end product of our deep moral exhaustion. ↗

— Gary Shteyngart

#americans #decline #defeat #docility #exhaustion

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#love #politics #state #love

To restrict or legalize abortion, to allow or forbid gay marriage, a legislator would need to write and pass a law, get it signed by the president or a governor, and perhaps override a veto. A Supreme Court justice need only persuade four other people. If he or she is not internally constrained by the authority of a text, he or she is not constrained. ↗

— Michael J. Gerson

#politics #politics-of-the-united-states #same-sex-marriage #scotus #united-states

The kingdom of heaven in not a place but a state of mind. ↗

— John Burroughs

#inspirational #state-of-mind #wisdom #inspirational

If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself. ↗

— Mikhail Bakunin

#anarchist #chomsky #communism-patriotism-inspiration #lenin #leninism

No commander was ever privileged to lead a finer force; no commander ever derived greater inspiration from the performance of his troops. ↗

— John J. Pershing

#miltary #the-great-war #united-states-military #world-war- #inspirational

Ergens ter wereld bestaan nog volken en kudden, doch niet bij ons, mijne broeders: hier vindt men staten. Staat? Wat is dat? Wellaan! Zet nu de oren open, want thans zeg ik u mijn woord over de dood der volken. Staat beduidt het koudste van alle monsters. Koud is ook zijn leugen; en deze leugen kruipt hem uit de mond: 'Ik, de staat, ben het volk. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#men

Do you inquire why, holding these views and possessing some will of my own, i accept so imperfect a proposition? I answer, because I live among men and not among angels. ↗

— Thaddeus Stevens

#men

I feel that if my only audience is the Christian audience, then I've failed in my mission ↗

— Eric Wilson

#mission-statement #inspirational

For one man to gain another must lose ↗

— Samuel McMahon

#religious #statement #inspirational