Most people can swim a narrow river. Water is an alien element, but with labor we can force ourselves through it. A good swimmer c...an cross a wide river, a lake, even the English Channel; no one, as far as we know, has ever swum the Atlantic Ocean, or is likely to do so. Even a champion swimmer, if he had business which required to spend alternate weeks in Paris and London, would not make the trip regularly by swimming the English Channel. Although we can force ourselves through water by skill and main strength, for all practical purposes our ability to traverse water is only as good as our ships or our airplanes. And so with the activities of our brains. Thinking is probably as foreign to human nature as is water; it is an unnatural element into which we throw ourselves with hesitation, and in which we flounder once we are there. We have learned, during the millenniums, to do rather well with thinking, but only if we buoy ourselves up with words. Some thinking of a simple sort we can do without words, but difficult and sustained thinking, presumably, is completely impossible without their aid, as traversing the Atlantic Ocean is presumably impossible without instruments or supramarine transportation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory..., inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection,--for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a close tie of affection between sovereigns and their subjects; and as chaste wives should have no eyes but for their hus...bands, so faithful liegemen should keep their regards at home and not look after foreign crowns. For my part I like not for my sheep to wear a stranger's mark nor to dance after a foreigner's whistle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the suppo...rt of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political inter...ests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by exp...erts.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 »
Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government do it to somebody else. This is the i...dea behind foreign policy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all. Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. ...Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance. Almsgiving is the generosity of the rich; social aid levels up social inequalities. Charity separates the rich from the poor; aid raises the needy and sets him on the same level with the rich.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You are, I am sure, aware that genuine popular support in the United States is required to carry out any Government policy, foreig...n or domestic. The American people make up their own minds and no governmental action can change it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »