Rather than literally burning the midnight oil, which he judged to be unhealthy, John Adams advised his son to make the most of college by developing an inquisitive outlook that would prompt him to get to know the most exceptional scholars and question them closely. “Ask them about their tutors, manner of teaching. Observe what books lie on their tables. Fall into questions of literature, science, or what you will.
From ancient times and into the Middle Ages, man had dreamed of taking to the sky, of soaring into the blue like the birds. One savant in Spain in the year 875 is known to have covered himself with feathers in the attempt. Others devised wings of their own design and jumped from rooftops and towers – some to their deaths – in Constantinople, Nuremberg, Perugia.
Some serious Christians may possibly tremble for the Ark, and think the Christian religion in danger when divested of the patronage of civil power. They may fear inroads from licentiousness and infidelity, on the one hand, and from sectaries and party divisions on the other. But we may dismiss our fears, when we consider that truth can never be in real hazard, where there is a sufficiency of light and knowledge, and full liberty to vindicate it.
What was most striking about the long course of human events, Truman had concluded from his reading of history, were its elements of continuity, including, above all, human nature, which had changed little if at all through time. “The only new thing in the world is the history you don’t know,” he would one day tell an interviewer.
Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was “always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody,” ready to “jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up.” And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in “a good scrap.” It brought out “new ways of looking at things,” helped “round off the corners.” It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything.
In a day and age when, unfortunately, so few write letters or keep a diary any longer, the Wright Papers stand as a striking reminder of a time when that was not the way and of the immense value such writings can have in bringing history to life.
The title did not make the man, of course, but it enhanced the standing of the man in the eyes of others.
Crucial to Lee’s plan was the defense of that part of Long Island directly across the East River and particularly the imposing river bluffs near the tiny hamlet called Brooklyn, which was also spelled Breucklyn, Brucklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, or Brookline, and amounted to no more than seven or eight houses and an old Dutch church that stood in the middle of the Jamaica Road, the main road inland from the Brooklyn ferry landing.
Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.
Read history. By all means read history. We are all where we are, each of us, because others helped.
A man who has not better government of his tongue, no more command of his temper, is unfit for everything but children’s play and the company of boys.
I think instead of opposing systematically any administration, running down their characters and opposing all their measures, right or wrong, we ought to support every administration as far as we can in justice.
One of my favorite lines from an inaugural address is this – I wonder if you remember who said it? “How can we love our country and not love our countrymen? And loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they’re sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory.” It was said by Ronald Reagan.
When our founders spoke of the “pursuit of happiness,” they did not mean long vacations or the piling up of things. Happiness was in the enlargement of one’s being through the life of the mind and of the spirit.
Republicans in Washington have a habit of becoming curiously deaf to the voice of the people. They have a hard time hearing what the ordinary people of the country are saying. But they have no trouble at all hearing what Wall Street is saying. They are able to catch the slightest whisper from big business and the special interests.
LORD BOLINGBROKE, the eighteenth-century political philosopher, said that “history is philosophy teaching by examples.” Thucydides is reported to have said much the same thing two thousand years earlier. Jefferson.
These are strong, clear declarations of faith in education as the bulwark of freedom. For self-government to work, the people must be educated.
Washington, who regretted all his life that he never had the advantage of a formal education, wrote, “Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
He asked for national compulsory health insurance to be funded by payroll deductions. Under the system, all citizens would receive medical and hospital service irrespective of their ability to pay. And.
On July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong, another American born and raised in western Ohio, stepped onto the moon, he carried with him, in tribute to the Wright brothers, a small swatch of the muslin from a wing of their 1903 Flyer.