Mike > Mike's Quotes

“Heart weeps.
Head tries to help heart.
Head tells heart how it is, again:
You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday.
Heart feels better, then.
But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart.
Heart is so new to this.
I want them back, says heart.
Head is all heart has.
Help, head. Help heart.”
― Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance

“Republicans, white and black, heaped scorn upon “respectables” who did not participate directly in the violence but “could not stop their sons from murdering their inoffensive neighbors in broad daylight.” Yet their complicity went beyond silence in the face of unspeakable crimes. Through their constant vilification of blacks, carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Reconstruction, the “old political leaders” fostered a climate that condoned violence as a legitimate weapon in the struggle for Redemption.”
― Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877

“Ironically, as Illinois Sen. Richard Yates pointed out, opponents of expansionism employed arguments extremely reminiscent of proslavery ideology, while its supporters upheld the principle that nonwhites could be successfully incorporated into the body politic. (No people, quipped Nevada Sen. James W. Nye, were “too degraded” for citizenship: “We have New Jersey, and all things considered, it has proven a success.”)”
― Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877