Advertising keeps Gaia free! Interested in sponsoring us?
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
I inhabit a week, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America's] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. . . . She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. This appears with minor variations in punctuation and with italics in the phrase "change from liberty to force," in John Quincy Adams and American Continental Empire, ed. Walter LaFeber, p. 45 (1965).
THE WANTS OF MAN 'Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.'* 'Tis not with me exactly so, But 'tis so in the song. My wants are many, and if told Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more. *from Oliver Goldsmith's Hermit.
Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth. Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail. Always vote for a principle, though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote is never lost. America, in the assembly of nations, has uniformly spoken among them the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights.
This is the last of earth! I am content.
Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable uses, which ever signalized the spirit of the age, or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder, none can be named more deserving of the approbation of mankind than this. Should it be faithfully carried into effect, with an earnestness and sagacity of application, and a steady perseverance of pursuit, proportioned to the means furnished by the will of the founder, and to the greatness and simplicity of his design as by himself declared, "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," it is no extravagance of anticipation to declare, that his name will be hereafter enrolled among the eminent benefactors of mankind. . . . Whoever increases his knowledge, multiplies the uses to which he is enabled to turn the gift of his Creator. This passage, in a slightly altered form, is inscribed on the exterior of the National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.: "Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable uses which ever signalized the spirit of the age or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder none can be named more deserving of the approbation of mankind than the Smithsonian Institution. Should it be faithfully carried into effect with an earnestness and sagacity of application. . . proportioned to the means furnished by the will of the founder and to the greatness and simplicity of his design as by himself declared, 'The increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,' his name will be hereafter enrolled among the eminent benefactors of mankind. . . whoever increases knowledge multiplies the uses to which he is able to turn the gift of his creator.
