"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
— Theodore Roosevelt

""Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.""
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Um, yeah. For instance, take, you know, take, for instance, the issue of -- I'm drawing a blank, and I hate it when I do that, particularly on television.
-- potential McCain VP candidate Mark Sanford, asked on CNN to name differences in economic policy between Bush and McCain"
— Mark Sanford

"John McCain’s plan to balance the budget by 2013 may have just taken the prize for Most Ridicule Sustained in a 24-Hour Period. (Before that, McCain's and Clinton’s gas-tax holiday proposals held the title.) The biggest gripe: It’s hard to see how McCain would sustain the Bush tax cuts, which the CBO estimates would create a $443 billion deficit by 2013, and still find room for his estimated $300 billion in additional tax proposals while also eliminating the deficit."
— Christopher Beam

"This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

It is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend"
— Barack Obama