If you have ever watched an artist constructing with bits of cold stone a beautiful living picture you know that he works faithful...ly and carefully on the pattern from the wrong side and while he is working every inequality, every tint a little too dull is apparent to him as his picture grows, but he works on and on. And even when he finishes at last and looks down at the completed pattern he is not discouraged to see here a little crevice and there a little roughness, an open seam here, a tiny patch there where the bit of marble was too small. Now he pours his cement over it and smoothes [sic] it into every seam, and with faith puts his work to dry. Next day the pattern is turned and the perfect whole is given to view, needing only the polishing of a loving hand to make it ready to slip in place. So we should work faithfully on our pattern, cement it together with ourselves, and polish it with human kindness; and lo! the work slips into place seemingly a perfect whole.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When you let him in, then he wants to be out; He's always on the wrong side of every door,... And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am blamed for the pardon of [Ezra Hervey] Heywood, convicted in Boston of sending obscene matter through the mails. A man guilty... of circulating, writing, or publishing obscene books--books intended or calculated to corrupt the young--would find no favor with me.... I think the real objection to Heywood's act is ... that he was on the wrong side of the question ... as to marriage.... But it is no crime by the laws of the United States to advocate the abolition of marriage. In this case the writings were objectionable but were not obscene, lascivious, lewd, or corrupting in the criminal sense.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
America has made no reparation to the Vietnamese, nothing. We are the richest people in the world and they are among the poorest. ...We savaged them, though they had never hurt us, and we cannot find it in our hearts, our honor, to give them help--because the government of Vietnam is Communist. And perhaps because they won.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liber...ty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue--the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »