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

“Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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