Sublime
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It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society. The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
As Pershing’s chief of operations for the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I, Fox Conner directed the development and successful deployment of American combat forces in France. Pershing considered Conner to have been “a brilliant soldier” and “one of the finest characters our Army has ever produced.” Pershing paid tribute to Con
... See moreSteven Rabalais • General Fox Conner: Pershing's Chief of Operations and Eisenhower's Mentor (The Generals Book 3)
The antimonopoly fervency in America traces back to Andrew Jackson and earlier. Hofstadter locates it in a culture of “farmers and small-town entrepreneurs—ambitious, mobile, speculative, antiauthoritarian, egalitarian, and competitive.”
Charles R. Morris • The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy
The country where Locke’s principle of the division of powers has found its fullest application is the United States, where the President and Congress are wholly independent of each other, and the Supreme Court is independent of both.
Bertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
“The history of governments,” John Hay later observed, “affords few instances of an official connection hallowed by a friendship so absolute and sincere as that which existed between these two magnanimous spirits. Lincoln had snatched away from Seward at Chicago
Doris Kearns Goodwin • Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
When one of the Framers, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, suggested that they be elected by the people, not a single member of the Convention rose to support him. “The people should have as little to do as may be about the government,” Roger Sherman declared. “They lack information and are constantly liable to be misled.”
Robert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Given a bit of time to reflect on the events of the past few days, Flagler sat down on January 27 to compose a letter to Joseph Parrott, one that gives some insight into his state of mind: The last few days have been full of happiness to me, made so by the expression of appreciation of the people for the work I have done in Florida. A large part of
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
A curb on the practice was enacted in 1917, after President Wilson had added a phrase to the American political lexicon by denouncing “a little group of willful men” (actually eleven senators, including La Follette and his fellow liberal George Norris) who had talked to death Wilson’s proposal to arm American merchantmen against German submarine at
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Roosevelt and Reagan didn’t found their eras. The era was in crisis, and that crisis could not be solved in conventional ways. A break with the past was essential, and Roosevelt and Reagan presided over what was necessary.