You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.
We can have no “50-50” allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.
Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe… Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.
My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war–and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair.
It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good.