When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, inner life in which freedom lives. In which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.
Solemnity in politicians is not only tiresome but may even mask those twin sins - self-righteousness and intolerance - for the opinions of others. If I couldn't laugh, I couldn't live, especially in politics.
Man does not live by words alone, in spite of the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
I wish the world could better know this country for what it really is. Not just a greedy economic giant crouching fearfully behind its walls, not just a panoplied warrior nervously fingering his weapons. What is this, is a people who gather together in thousands to give a people's government its essential vitality.
