But presidential approval also became a surrogate measure of national unity and patriotism.
First, his job approval ratings have been trending down for many months, a trend that has accelerated in recent weeks as the war on terrorism has been supplanted in the public’s mind by corporate scandals, stock market declines, and a growing sense of economic insecurity.
In the House, Republican prospects have been buoyed by several successful rounds of redistricting, which have sharply reduced the number of competitive seats and given the Republicans a national advantage of at least a dozen seats.
A healthy degree of party unity among Democrats and Republicans has deteriorated into bitter partisan warfare.
We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way.
You ask what is the use of classification, arrangement, and systemization? I answer you: order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject – the actual enemy is the unknown.
The writer’s joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.
Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate, and she is fate.
Some of necessities go astray, because for them there is no such thing as a right path.
A human being tends to believe that the mood of the moment, be it troubled or blithe, peaceful or stormy, is the true, native, and permanent tenor of his existence.
The increase in straight-ticket party voting in recent years means that competitive congressional races can tip one way or the other depending on the showing of the candidates at the top of the ticket.
The public’s evaluation of the job George W. Bush is doing as president changed dramatically as a result of the horrific attacks of September 11 and his response in leading the country on a campaign against terrorism.
Votes in federal elections are cast and counted in a highly decentralized and variable fashion, with no uniform ballots and few national standards.
America is an outlier in the world of democracies when it comes to the structure and conduct of elections.
Nothing is more curious and awkward than the relationship of two people who only know each other with their eyes – who meet and observe each other daily, even hourly and who keep up the impression of disinterest either because of morals or because of a mental abnormality. Between them there is listlessness and pent-up curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need for communion and also a kind of tense respect. Because man loves and honors man as long as he is not able to judge him, and desire is a product of lacking knowledge.
It is most certainly a good thing that the world knows only the beautiful opus but not its origins, not the conditions of its creation; for if people knew the sources of the artist’s inspiration, that knowledge would often confuse them, alarm them, and thereby destroy the effects of excellence. strange hours! strangely enervating labor! bizarrely fertile intercourse of the mind with a body!
Travelers prove their lack of education if they make fun of the customs and values of their hosts, and the qualities that do a person honour are many and varied.
Only death dignifies our sufferings in the eyes of others.
At thirty a man steps out of the darkness and wasteland of preparation into active life it is the time to show oneself, the time of fulfillment.
Like any lover, he desired to please; suffered agonies at the thought of failure.