Miriam Williams

“Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville , Democracy in America

“Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon

“Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a person courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration, and steels the will to endurance. It is not merely a physical development then. Sport, rightly understood, is an occupation of the whole person, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth….”
― Pope Pius XII