The Surreal Thread #2

[brinny]

America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them. ~James Michener

 

[brinny]

When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. ~Adlai Stevenson

 

[brinny]

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~Abraham Lincoln

 

[brinny]

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world. ~Woodrow Wilson

 

[brinny]

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. ~Robert J. McCracken

 

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What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it. ~Hubert H. Humphrey

 

[brinny]

The United States is the only country with a known birthday. ~James G. Blaine

 

[brinny]

Oh, it's home again and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea
To the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.
~Henry Van Dyke

 

[brinny]

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds. ~Will Rogers

 

[brinny]

America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. ~Adlai Stevenson

 

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The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

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I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. ~Francis Bellamy, The Youth's Companion, 8 September 1892

 

[brinny]

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.
~Marcus Tullius Cicero

 

[brinny]

There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good. ~George Eliot

 

[brinny]

Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason. ~Sir John Harrington

 

[brinny]

It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things, which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. ... Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
~Patrick Henry

 

[brinny]

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities states and nation. At the head is a small group of banking houses generally referred to as 'international bankers.' This little coterie... run our government for their own selfish ends. It operates under cover of a self-created screen...[and] seizes...our executive officers... legislative bodies... schools... courts... newspapers and every agency created for the public protection. ~John F. Hylan

 

[brinny]

Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.
~Thomas Jefferson

 

[brinny]

Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.
~Thomas Jefferson

 

[brinny]

To say that subjects in general are not proper judges (of the law) when their governors oppress them and play the tyrant, and when they defend their rights ...is as great a treason as ever a man uttered...
~Jonathan Mayhew