I confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress. (Alexis de Tocqueville)
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. (Abraham Lincoln)
What is the American idea? It’s the fractious, maddening approach to the conduct of human affairs that values equality despite its elusiveness, that values democracy despite its debasement, that values pluralism despite its messiness, that values institutions of civic culture despite their flaws, and that values public life as something higher and greater than the sum of all our private lifes. (The Editors of The Atlantic Monthly)
