Souls

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
--Thomas Paine (1776)

Audited

Unfortunately, when I haven't seen friends in a while they want to "catch up." "Catching up" is a lot like being audited, as it forces you to account for all the time since you last caught up. Over dinner, friends say things like, "How are you?" The short answer is "Fine." It's short because it ends conversation. Then you have to think of something else to say. The long answer is "Miserable." It's long because they'll want to know why, and then you have to tell them. The medium answer is, "Fine, and you?"
--Iris Smyles

Liberty

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
--William Hazlitt

Catalyst

Listen: Love won't always be reciprocated. Its goal is not reciprocity, but elevation. Personal and atmospheric elevation. It's the decision to not allow darkness internally and to perpetuate light both internally and externally. Love is a catalyst.
--Bernice King

Lost America

In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn't until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her.
--John McCain

Forward

If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (November 4, 1938)

Patriotism

What greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?
--Barack Obama

Temporary

We are in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell.
--Olivia Laing

Obsessive

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
--Robert O. Paxton (The Anatomy of Fascism; 2004)

Meaning

This world is infinitely layered and mysterious. Every day of our lives, we see far more than we can comprehend, and because the failure to comprehend disquiets us, we lie to ourselves about what we see. We want a simple world, but we live in one that is magnificently complex. Rather than acknowledge the exquisite roundness of creation, we take it in thin slices, and we view each slice through tinted, distorting lenses that further diminish its beauty and obscure truths that await recognition. Complexity implies meaning, and we are afraid of meaning.
--Dean Koontz

Betray

For not only do we reveal ourselves with our words, we also betray ourselves.
--Pascal Mercier

Humanity

Imagining the humanity of people other than myself is my responsibility. And yet the root cause of so much grief is our failure to do just that.
--Jennifer Finney Boylan

Crime

Organized religion was the world's first organized crime syndicate. Other benefits besides money and power were keeping women as slaves and breeders; controlling the masses of society with fear and lies; and creating the ultimate boys club.
--JoAnn Black

Experiment

Of all scientific experiments, the experiment of inhabiting consciousness--that is, a singular consciousness--must be the most extraordinary. Yet we take it for granted, we simply drift with "consciousness" as if it were a river with no banks, bed, source, or destination.
--Joyce Carol Oates

Fuck

If you take away the right to say fuck, you take away the right to say fuck the government.
--Lenny Bruce

Good-Faith

The important distinction is not between theists and naturalists; it's between people who care enough about the universe to make a good-faith effort to understand it, and those who fit it into a predetermined box or simply take it for granted.
--Sean Carroll

Wallet

How far down the current presidential line of succession would you have to go before you found someone who'd return your wallet with the cash still inside?
--Jason Roeder

Noted

People overestimate the extent to which their actions and appearance are noted by others.
--Thomas D. Gilovich

Sane

The kind of madness I had was different. It was quiet, and very, very dangerous. It was a madness designed to keep me sane.
--Helen Macdonald

August 6

Here's a basic question we as a species should pose to the 21st century every August 6 (the anniversary of Hiroshima) through 9 (Nagasaki): What if fewer children were killed?
--Sarah Vowell

Obsessive

Fascism is a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
--Robert O. Paxton (2004)

The Press

The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent ANY part of the government from deceiving the people.
--Justice Hugo L. Black

Bible

It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
--Mark Twain