U.S. international and security policy ... has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call "the Fifth Freedom," und...erstood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If any of us hopes to survive, s/he must meet the extremity of the American female condition with immediate and political response.... The thoroughly destructive and indefensible subjugation of the majority of Americans cannot continue except at the peril of the entire body politic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Maybe it's understandable what a history of failures America's foreign policy has been. We are, after all, a country full of peopl...e who came to America to get away from foreigners. Any prolonged examination of the U.S. government reveals foreign policy to be America's miniature schnauzer--a noisy but small and useless part of the national household.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is easier to discover another such a new world as Columbus did, than to go within one fold of this which we appear to know so w...ell; the land is lost sight of, the compass varies, and mankind mutiny; and still history accumulates like rubbish before the portals of nature. But there is only necessary a moment's sanity and sound senses, to teach us that there is a nature behind the ordinary, in which we have only some vague preemption right and western reserve as yet. We live on the outskirts of that region. Carved wood, and floating boughs, and sunset skies are all that we know of it.... Let us not, my friends, be wheedled and cheated into good behavior to earn the salt of our eternal porridge, whoever they are that attempt it. Let us wait a little, and not purchase any clearing here, trusting that richer bottoms will soon be put up. It is but thin soil where we stand; I have felt my roots in a richer ere this. I have seen a bunch of violets in a glass vase, tied loosely with a straw, which reminded me of myself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This "charity-house," as the wrecker called it, this "Humane house," as some call it, that is, the one to which we first came, had... neither window nor sliding shutter, nor clapboards, nor paint. As we have said, there was a rusty nail put through the staple. However, as we wished to get an idea of a Humane house, and we hoped that we should never have a better opportunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot-hole in the door, and, after long looking, without seeing, into the dark,--not knowing how many shipwrecked men's bones we might see at last, looking with the eye of faith, knowing that, though to him that knocketh it may not always be opened, yet to him that looketh long enough through a knot-hole the inside shall be visible,--for we had had some practice at looking inward,--by steadily keeping our other ball covered from the light meanwhile, putting the outward world behind us, ocean and land, and the beach,--till the pupil became enlarged and collected the rays of light that were wandering in that dark (for the pupil shall be enlarged by looking; there was never so dark a night but a faithful and patient eye, however small, might at last prevail over it),--after all this, I say, things began to take shape to our vision,--if we may use this expression where there was nothing but emptiness,--and we obtained the long-wished-for insight. Though we thought at first that it was a hopeless case, after several minutes' steady exercise of the divine faculty, our prospects began steadily to brighten, and we were ready to exclaim with the blind bard of "Paradise Lost and Regained,"-- "Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born, Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblamed?" A little longer, and a chimney rushed red on our sight. In short, when our vision had grown familiar with the darkness, we discovered that there were some stones and some loose wads of wool on the floor, and an empty fireplace at the further end; but it was not supplied with matches, or straw, or hay, that we could see, nor "accommodated with a bench." Indeed, it was the wreck of all cosmical beauty there within. Turning our backs on the outward world, we thus looked through the knot-hole into the Humane house, into the very bowels of mercy; and for bread we found a stone. It was literally a great cry (of sea-mews outside), and a little wool. However, we were glad to sit outside, under the lee of the Humane house, to escape the piercing wind; and there we thought how cold is charity! how inhumane humanity! This, then, is what charity hides! Virtues antique and far away, with ever a rusty nail over the latch; and very difficult to keep in repair, withal, it is so uncertain whether any will ever gain the beach near you. So we shivered round about, not being able to get into it, ever and anon looking through the knot-hole into that night without a star, until we concluded that it was not a humane house at all, but a seaside box, now shut up, belonging to some of the family of Night or Chaos, where they spent their summers by the sea, for the sake of the sea-breeze, and that it was not proper for us to be prying into their concerns.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the m...ilitia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and are commonly treated as enemies by it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It has always been thought perfectly womanly to be a scrub- woman in the Legislature and to take care of the spittoons; that is en...tirely within the charmed circle of woman's sphere; but for women to occupy any of those official seats would be degrading.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Why do our bodies wear out? Why can't we just go on and on and on, accumulating a potentially infinite number of Frequent Flyer mi...leage points? These are the kinds of questions that philosophers have been asking ever since they realized that being a philosopher did not involve any heavy lifting. And yet the answer is really very simple. Our bodies are mechanical devices, they break down. Some devices, such as battery-operated toys costing $39.95, break down almost instantly upon exposure to the Earth's atmosphere. Other devices, such as stereo systems owned by your next-door neighbor's 13-year-old son who likes to listen to bands with names like "Nerve Damage," at a volume capable of disintegrating limestone, will continue to function perfectly for many years, even if you hit them with an ax. But the fundamental law of physics is that sooner or later every mechanism ceases to function for one reason or another, and it is never covered under the warranty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Her mind is inferior to that of man, and we know that it requires the strongest of minds to become a good politician.... She has n...ot sufficient stability of character. She would always follow the opinions of her father, brother or husband ... and this might do more hurt than good.... There is no need of it. There are men enough who have nothing else to do who can transact all necessary business.... If permitted to study politics she would understand the art of governing and she might usurp the authority of men and it would be rather revolting to our feelings to see her holding it over the lords of creation.... She is too fastidious. This needs no comment.... If woman should have the control of affairs, we should soon see woman placed in every department of office in the country, thus throwing many of our most distinguished men out of office, and of course out of employment, or they would not do anything else to support themselves, and would soon become pests to security.... she would soon be able to converse intelligently on the subject of politics, and on this subject equal men.... If we should see ladies attending conventions, traveling about the country in great carts drawn by many yoke of oxen, waving their pocket handkerchiefs to assembled multitudes, it would greatly shock our sensibilities.... She was never designed for it. Her eyes were never made to be spoiled in plodding over political trash.... I presume it would be quite as easy to give 40 times 40 reasons why gentlemen should not engage in politics with such fiery zeal that they sometimes do, as it is to give 40 why ladies should not engage in them as well.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Washington press corps thinks that Julie Nixon Eisenhower is the only member of the Nixon Administration who has any credibili...ty--and, as one journalist put it, this is not to say that anyone believes what she is saying but simply that people believe she believes what she is saying ... it is almost as if she is the only woman in America over the age of twenty who still thinks her father is exactly what she thought he was when she was six.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »