On Democracy (6 October 1884)
Context: The framers of the American Constitution were far from wishing or intending to found a democracy in the strict sense of the word, though, as was inevitable, every expansion of the scheme of government they elaborated has been in a democratical direction. But this has been generally the slow result of growth, and not the sudden innovation of theory; in fact, they had a profound disbelief in theory, and knew better than to commit the folly of breaking with the past. They were not seduced by the French fallacy that a new system of government could be ordered like a new suit of clothes. They would as soon have thought of ordering a new suit of flesh and skin. It is only on the roaring loom of time that the stuff is woven for such a vesture of their thought and experience as they were meditating. They recognized fully the value of tradition and habit as the great allies of permanence and stability. They all had that distaste for innovation which belonged to their race, and many of them a distrust of human nature derived from their creed.
Hermann Göring, Third Reich politician, to a Bulgarian correspondent.
Hermann Göring, Third Reich politician, to a Bulgarian correspondent, World War: Lowlands of 1941 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772601-4,00.html, The Time, Monday, 20 January 1941
“When people went on vacation, they shed their home skins, thought they could be a new person.”
Source: Sea Change
Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God
“I couldn't be a responsible enough parent if my kid was born with a new suit and a full-time job.”
Something to Take the Edge Off (2000)
“only through new words
might new worlds
be called
into order”
Source: , said the shotgun to the head.
Speech in the United States House of Representatives (12 January 1848)
1840s
Context: Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right — a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.
