Richard

“Of all the Whig projects of moral and civic improvement, their most ambitious instrument of republican soulcraft was the public school. As Horace Mann, the first secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, explained, if all were to share in governing, then true to the republican tradition, all would have to be equipped with the requisite moral and intellectual resources: “with universal suffrage, there must be universal elevation of character, intellectual and moral, or there will be universal mismanagement and calamity.” The question whether human beings are capable of self-government admits only a conditional answer; they are capable insofar as they possess the intelligence and goodness and breadth of view to govern on behalf of the public good. “But men are not born in the full possession of such an ability,” nor do they necessarily develop it as they grow to adulthood.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“American humorist Kin Hubbard said , "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be". The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue... Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.

Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”
― Richard P. Feynman