Mcpherson Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Mcpherson. Here they are! All 100 of them:

I think that love must be the ability to suspend one's intelligence for the sake of something. At the basis of love therefore must live imagination.
James Alan McPherson (Elbow Room)
If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money.
Guy McPherson
Laughter is the stubborn reward of grim times.
Edward McPherson (Buster Keaton: Tempest In A Flat Hat)
If you really think that the enviroment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money.
Dr. Guy McPherson
She was my past, my present, my everything, and when the time came I'd make her my forever.
Angela McPherson (Distraction (Distraction #1))
Any pub will do?” “McPherson’s, I think. One with music that will alter my life forever, give me eternal happiness, and make me see God. You know. One like that.” “So you need the magical sound of Ireland and some information about an Abbeyglen native. Francine”—Beckett’s eyes danced in the streaming sunlight—“I’m about to solve your every problem.” Beckett stood up and gave my hair a light tug. “Prepare to worship and adore me.
Jenny B. Jones (There You'll Find Me)
Birth, death . . .?’ ‘And nappies, madam. Things men don’t do.
Catriona McPherson (After the Armistice Ball (Dandy Gilver, #1))
That kind of flabby sentiment – thinking that there is good in everyone – is responsible for a great deal of harm.
Catriona McPherson (After the Armistice Ball (Dandy Gilver, #1))
His captors asked why he, a nonslaveholder, was fighting to uphold slavery. He replied: “I’m fighting because you’re down here.”7
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
The warmness of his touch felt like coming home.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Decree (The Fated #1))
Please be my friend.
kevin mcpherson eckhoff
The difficult we can do immediately; the impossible will take a little longer.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
I wanted a normal life, but normal was as foreign to me as a super bowl ring was to Tony Romo.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Decree (The Fated #1))
What has she done to deserve such scorn?' I said. He had the grace to look uncomfortable as he answered. 'Not her in particular, miss,' he said, 'Just her sort. People like her in general, I mean.' 'Oh Harry,' I said, 'there is no such thing as people in general. Everyone is someone very particular.
Catriona McPherson (Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains (Dandy Gilver, #5))
Being in love with someone was supposed to be a sweet and tender release. However, being in love with your best friend, who didn't interpret those feelings in the same way, became a violently brutal ache.
Angela McPherson (Distraction (Distraction, #1))
Lift up your heads, ye people, lift up your faces, too, open your mouths to sing His praise, and the rain will fall on you.
Aimee Semple McPherson
   As pointed out by French author and Nobelist in literature André Gide: "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again." So, here I go, saying it again.
Guy R. McPherson (Going Dark)
The notion of "cause and effect" is sometimes useful in real life, and it can even be interesting in art, but I'm more interested in "cause and cause" or "effect and effect" or "and and and".
kevin mcpherson eckhoff
The odds were so not in my favor. My situation sucked to the messed-up-degree.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Decree (The Fated #1))
Most teenagers couldn't wait to turn eighteen. Would I even be around by then? A new goal of mine, don't die. -Trinity
Angela McPherson (Hope's Decree (The Fated #1))
If any man wills to be a Christian, he can be a Christian. If you go to hell, you go of your own accord.
Aimee Semple McPherson
More than twice as many Americans lost their lives in one day at Sharpsburg as fell in combat in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American war combined.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
The Civil War was pre-eminently a political war, a war of peoples rather than of professional armies.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
Having a coach or mentor is nothing more than sharing life’s experiences, no amount of education can substitute true life experience
Lachlan McPherson
News flash! There is no superman coming. There is no god coming. There are no aliens coming. There is no planet X
Guy McPherson (Only Love Remains: Dancing at the Edge of Extinction)
It is a quintessential example of the whirling kinetics that drive a Keaton film, in which not just the medium but the human body- the permutations of the sinews, the shock of the limbs -seems infinitely elastic, an unruly instument to be wilded with a cheeky kind of grace.
Edward McPherson (Buster Keaton: Tempest In A Flat Hat)
Not surprisingly, South Carolina acted first. “There is nothing in all the dark caves of human passion so cruel and deadly as the hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees.” wrote the correspondent of the London Times from Charleston. The enmity of Greek for Turk was child’s play “compared to the animosity evinced by the ‘gentry’ of South Carolina for the ‘rabble of the North.’ … The State of South Carolina was,’ I am
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
If you fall, I'll catch you. Always.
Angela McPherson (Distraction (Distraction, #1))
When one looks at the very elderly or the very ill, one forgets they're not some exotic tribe, but just ourselves at a different moment.
Catriona McPherson
Books make such good friends and quiet neighbors.
Catriona McPherson (Quiet Neighbors)
Friendship's like a relationship between friends.
kevin mcpherson eckhoff (channelling voices)
How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
The United States has usually prepared for its wars after getting into them. Never was this more true than in the Civil War.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
emotional fuckwittage.
Tara McPherson
The young are ever so; unable to believe that the decrepitude before it was ever firm young flesh or that they themselves will ever crumble.
Catriona McPherson (Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom)
Together, we will be unstoppable.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated Book 2))
His love is like an unquenchable fire and He refreshes with living waters. I thirst daily and go to the well to drink and be consumed
Lori McPherson
And in the final reckoning, American lives lost in the Civil War exceed the total of those lost in all the other wars the country has fought added together, world wars included.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
Rick, this is Faith's father, David." He couldn't drag his eyes away from David's neck. Because around it was a white collar. Jesus Christ, Faith McPherson's father was a minister!
Kathryn Shay (Nothing More to Lose (The Firefighter Trilogy #3))
My stomach knotted, the nausea so intense I began heaving on the ground. Smell, taste; all of it evil. A darkness so pure, I knew I could never defeat it. My fear strangled my light. 
Angela McPherson (Hope's Decree (The Fated #1))
Without warning, he tossed a bottle of water at me, which I caught. "Nope, no joke. Now I've got to get some beauty sleep, and based on the way you look, you could use a little yourself.
Angela McPherson
Nonsense! Nonsense!” snorted Tasbrough. “That couldn’t happen here in America, not possibly! We’re a country of freemen.” “The answer to that,” suggested Doremus Jessup, “if Mr. Falck will forgive me, is ‘the hell it can’t!’ Why, there’s no country in the world that can get more hysterical—yes, or more obsequious!—than America. Look how Huey Long became absolute monarch over Louisiana, and how the Right Honorable Mr. Senator Berzelius Windrip owns his State. Listen to Bishop Prang and Father Coughlin on the radio—divine oracles, to millions. Remember how casually most Americans have accepted Tammany grafting and Chicago gangs and the crookedness of so many of President Harding’s appointees? Could Hitler’s bunch, or Windrip’s, be worse? Remember the Kuklux Klan? Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut ‘Liberty cabbage’ and somebody actually proposed calling German measles ‘Liberty measles’? And wartime censorship of honest papers? Bad as Russia! Remember our kissing the—well, the feet of Billy Sunday, the million-dollar evangelist, and of Aimée McPherson, who swam from the Pacific Ocean clear into the Arizona desert and got away with it? Remember Voliva and Mother Eddy?. . .Remember our Red scares and our Catholic scares, when all well-informed people knew that the O.G.P.U. were hiding out in Oskaloosa, and the Republicans campaigning against Al Smith told the Carolina mountaineers that if Al won the Pope would illegitimatize their children? Remember Tom Heflin and Tom Dixon? Remember when the hick legislators in certain states, in obedience to William Jennings Bryan, who learned his biology from his pious old grandma, set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution?. . .Remember the Kentucky night-riders? Remember how trainloads of people have gone to enjoy lynchings? Not happen here? Prohibition—shooting down people just because they might be transporting liquor—no, that couldn’t happen in America! Why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours! We’re ready to start on a Children’s Crusade—only of adults—right now, and the Right Reverend Abbots Windrip and Prang are all ready to lead it!” “Well, what if they are?
Sinclair Lewis (It Can't Happen Here)
The casualties at Antietam numbered four times the total suffered by American soldiers at the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944. More than twice as many Americans lost their lives in one day at Sharpsburg as fell in combat in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War combined.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
I'm going to have to bring up the nigger bill again. [Said to a southern U.S. Senator upon the occasion of the Republicans re-introducing the Civil Right Act of 1957, according to LBJ's Special Counsel Harry McPherson.]
Lyndon B. Johnson
Do I even want to know what that was?" I only half way wanted an answer. "It's something you should've already taken by now." I lifted my head, searching his face, but when I did his face doubled. Fact two: he'd drugged me. Great.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Decree (The Fated #1))
Books give us pleasure not because they make us comfortable, though some good ones may, but because they entertain us, they make us laugh, they make us cry; they inform, persuade, disturb, convince, seduce us; they make us think, speculate, see - and we recognize what we see as true, not as the truth but as a truth in the writer's fabulous construction that corresponds to what we have observed in ourselves, or others, or in the world at large, or can conceive of observing.
William McPherson
The upper South, like the lower, went to war to defend the freedom of white men to own slaves and to take them into the territories as they saw fit, lest these white men be enslaved by Black Republicans who threatened to deprive them of these liberties.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
Lincoln too considered secession the “essence of anarchy.” He branded state sovereignty a “sophism.” “The Union is older than any of the States,” Lincoln asserted, “and, in fact, it created them as States.” The Declaration of Independence transformed the “United Colonies” into the United States; without this union then, there would never have been any “free and independent States.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
He leaned in close to my ear, and his hand grazed my thigh. "I forgot to mention this morning," he paused, letting enough time go by that my body caved and pulled toward him like gravity, "I plan on making sure you miss your dinner date with jock boy tonight.
Angela McPherson
In all the universe, men have more in common with women than any other entity, yet we draw the most rigid line of distinction when comparing the two groups. A boy or man can be favorably compared to an inanimate object or animal ("He's built like a house," "He's my dog," "He runs like a deer"), but if he is compared to a girl or a woman, it is often the ultimate insult. This is misogyny.
Don McPherson (You Throw Like a Girl: The Blind Spot of Masculinity)
And the barman asked me if I was alright? Simple little question. And i said I was. And he said he'd make me a sandwich. And I said okay. And I nearly started crying--because you know, here was someone just...And I watched him. He took two big slices off a fresh loaf and buttered them carefully, spreading it all around. I'll never forget it. And then he sliced some cheese and cooked ham and an onion out of a jar, and put it all on a plate and sliced it down the middle. And, just someone doing this for me. And putting it down in front of me. 'Get that down you, now,' he said. And then he folded up his newspaper and put on his jacket, and went off on his break. And there was another barman then. And I took this sandwich up and I could hardly swallow it, because of the lump in my throat. But I ate i tall down because someone I didn't know had done this for me. Such a small thing. But a huge thing. In my condition.
Conor McPherson (The Weir)
My day was looking up, until he spoke. "Looks like you forgot to brush your hair this morning." His eyes ran down my body, briefly stopping at my chest, which made me remember I didn't have a bra on. My breathing increased. "And you should really brush your teeth." What the hell?
Angela McPherson
My brother! The death of a loved one is the hardest thing, It doesn't comparing to a single thing. The hurt it brings, Breaks the toughest man Even his brother let alone his parents. All we must remember is, Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, and love leaves a memory no one can steal. Peter McPherson, 25 of April 2014
Peter McPherson
Graham spoke plainly and directly. Convinced that the average person had a working vocabulary of six hundred words, he made a point to stick with common words and short sentences. Though he never put it exactly this way, he instinctively grasped the import of Sister Aimee Semple McPherson’s recipe for rabbit stew: first “you have to catch the rabbit.
Grant Wacker (One Soul at a Time: The Story of Billy Graham (Library of Religious Biography (LRB)))
He looked up and our gazes met. He was a beautiful mess, and I loved him so much, but the pain he created… well, I didn't think I'd recover.
Angela McPherson (Addiction (Distraction #2))
Wow. Y'all really outdid yourselves. Looks like an elf threw up in here.
Angela McPherson (Addiction (Distraction #2))
Not a chance,’ said the doctor. If he had a bedside manner he evidently saved it for actual bedsides.
Catriona McPherson (Dandy Gilver and The Reek of Red Herrings)
Who needs toothpaste when you have cigarettes?
kevin mcpherson eckhoff
Soldiers of capitalism are the fathers of dissent.
kevin mcpherson eckhoff
I've tried therapy several times, and after a few visits, it becomes clear that there's only so much I can do for the therapist.
Guy R. McPherson
You feel guilty when you do something wrong, but you feel shame when you feel like you are something wrong.
Miles McPherson (The Third Option: Hope for a Racially Divided Nation)
Blain nodded and walked away.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated Book 2))
Milk does a body nothing, apparently.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated #2))
And I can't take the girl shit." Morpheus's face paled. "Man, her eyes leak too damn much.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated Book 2))
Course, now I know Morpheus created them. Zeus had gifted the loser with an ability to create dreams,
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated Book 2))
My brain had a difficult time processing what Dad being unfrozen meant.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated Book 2))
Those who deem me unworthy at a glance and pass me by, have my blessing to keep walking, for they have a long way to go.
Terri McPherson
Forever dream & make-believe
S. McPherson
I would like to think that people are capable of rational thought and of living in a rational manner but there has been study after study that demonstrates that that's not likely.
Guy R. McPherson
there's no money in extinction
Guy R. McPherson
My hope is that we can shift our focus away from merely avoiding saying or doing racist things, to becoming lovers of people. When we focus on honoring others as our mission in life, differences fade. Prejudice becomes a foreign concept. We begin seeing the image of God in the people we meet, and finding joy in helping others fulfill their God-given callings.
Miles McPherson (The Third Option: Hope for a Racially Divided Nation)
Dude, fix your hair and try applying a little makeup tonight. You are a girl, right?" I swear to goodness, Mom gave birth to Crystal and not me. "You two suck at being my best friends.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated Book 2))
Today, he carefully stepped through McPherson’s house, where a single half-drunk glass of wine and a plate of sliced cheese sat on the kitchen counter. The knife she’d used to cut the cheese had been left near the remains of a wedge. “Snack for one,” he observed. “Maybe dinner.” When he arched a brow, she said, “I’m a single woman. I recognize a meal when I see one.” “If
Lisa Jackson (You Don't Want To Know)
Kellie took in a deep breath before going on. "Tristan, I don't want to lose you, but I think underneath," she placed her hand on my chest, over my heart, "I think you're in love with her.
Angela McPherson (Distraction (Distraction, #1))
People everywhere, enjoying life, smiling, and just slowing down to let the world take care of itself for a few hours. The feeling was contagious. Especially when I stepped into McPherson's Pub to grab a bite of the special and listen to some traditional Irish music. The fiddle made me want to dance with myself, and many did. The drum beat like my very own heart. And some little flute that looked no wider than a pencil reminded me of the Aran Islands floating not too far from Abbeyglen. God was here tonight. In the strings of the guitar and the call of the singer's voice. I realize how often I overlook him back at home. And I know I don't want to do that anymore. The LORD will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night a prayer to the Gid of my life.
Jenny B. Jones (There You'll Find Me)
Okay, so you can manipulate the way you look, and you can read minds, and you can see the future?" I really hoped she couldn't see everything. Like private moments and, well, basically that exactly.
Angela McPherson (Hope's Deceit (The Fated Book 2))
Tell me what I'll be doing. Washing windows? Sweeping floors?" She cocked her head. "No, you'll be working with the kids as my aide." His whole face closed down. His hands fisted briefly. He reminded her of a picture in a Sunday school book she'd seen when she was little of a sinner condemned to hell. "No, I won't, Ms. McPherson. I will not, ever, be working with kids." "But that's all we have here for you to do.
Kathryn Shay (Nothing More to Lose (The Firefighter Trilogy #3))
Of course, when I was a girl, a housemaid’s face would have betrayed no emotion if the corpse were being dismembered on the carpet and she had to step over bits of it to reach the table, but times are changing
Catriona McPherson (Dandy Gilver and The Reek of Red Herrings)
...at bottom he did not believe the people wanted reform; they wanted a ten percent raise in wages. The public mind was a thing too big, too complicated and inert for a vision or an ideal to get at and move deeply.
Sherwood Anderson (Windy McPherson's Son (Prairie State Books))
As he shook hands with Grant’s military secretary Ely Parker, a Seneca Indian, Lee stared a moment at Parker’s dark features and said, “I am glad to see one real American here.” Parker responded, “We are all Americans.”39
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
Wanna know what I find sexy? Lets see...the pressure of your pouty lips on mine. Caressing, tasting, every inch of your naked body. Making love to you and hearing you scream, begging for more. Making you mine. Still waiting...

Angela McPherson (Distraction (Distraction, #1))
I ran my thumb over her bottom lip, needing to be sure she was really there and not a figment of my imagination. I didn't wonder long. Taking control, Elle grabbed my shirt and crashed her lips to mine. 
Best. Fucking. Kiss. Ever.
Angela McPherson (Distraction (Distraction, #1))
James M. McPherson spoke for a later generation of scholars when he asserted in 1988 that Lincoln’s entire, public inaugural journey might have been a “mistake,” because in his effort to avoid “a careless remark or slip of the tongue” that might “inflame the crisis further,” the president-elect “indulged in platitudes and trivia,” producing “an unfavorable impression on those who were already disposed to regard the ungainly president-elect as a commonplace prairie lawyer.
Harold Holzer (Lincoln President-Elect : Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter, 1860-1861)
There are times, though, when God may ask you to step out in faith so that you may see for yourself that He will make everything work to your advantage. Taking this first step in faith often means stepping out of your comfort zone, and it can be daunting. But moving out of this secure space is a good thing since no growth can take place when you are that much at ease. In fact, staying in your comfort zone may very well keep you from fulfilling God’s perfect plan in and with your life.
Retha McPherson (A Message From God (An NDE Collection))
We don’t need to worry about what everyone else thinks or likes. I dare you to sing your own song, do your own thing. We don’t have to dislike someone just because they look, sound or come across different. I dare you to be tolerant and fair. We don’t have to give up when things are buggered. I dare you to fight for what you want and what you believe. You have the strength. I dare you to love yourself … because no matter what you think, you are deadly. And don’t you forget it. Grace beside you always.
Sue McPherson (Grace Beside Me)
In cities and factories, the vices of our nature are more fully displayed,” declared James Hammond of South Carolina in 1829, while rural life “promotes a generous hospitality, a high and perfect courtesy, a lofty spirit of independence . . . and all the nobler virtues and heroic traits.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
NO!” I bellowed it at him. “You say that over and over like it’s some kind of slogan. And I never knew why it made me feel as if I was going mad. I don’t ‘upset myself,’ Marco. Things ‘upset me.’ Things ‘upset’ everyone unless they’re catatonic or drugged to their eyeballs. It’s called life.
Catriona McPherson (House. Tree. Person.)
As a Virginian, Scott deplored the cry of many Republican politicians and newspapers for an invasion to “crush the rebels.” Even if successful, he wrote, an invasion would produce “fifteen devastated provinces [that is, the slave states] not to be brought into harmony with their conquerors, but to be held for generations, by heavy garrisons.
James M. McPherson (Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief)
When you are faced with something challenging and you don’t know how to deal with it, you can get real low and sad and not sure what to do next. Well, that’s when you ‘sit a while’. You just find a spot out in the bush, in a paddock or at the beach. Turn off your iPod because you need to connect to the wind, the air, the wildlife and the old spirits around you. Sit on the ground and hold some dirt, sand or a rock in your hands, and work towards getting your breathing normal, then slow it down a little. It might take five or ten minutes or it might take an hour, it all depends how bad your situation is. When you calm your spirit and allow it to connect again to Country and if you are still and quiet enough you may be able to feel a subtle shift in your emotions – like a wave of strong wind – then calm. For me, when the shift comes, my confidence grows stronger. I might feel a little lighter around my shoulders and chest and a couple of times I’ve felt warmth on the back of my head. Eventually I look at the situation with my heart more open and I don’t feel so shitty. Now, I’m not saying this happens all the time,
Sue McPherson (Grace Beside Me)
Sometimes, in the night, it is expectant and therefore eager to be out. It has slept too long and is restless, fighting the force that keeps it patient. Years of internal slumber has drugged it, but not decisively, so that, once slightly touched, it starts and quivers and attempts to announce itself so strongly that, occasionally, a man's mind will wake in his bed and ask itself: Who is there?
James Alan McPherson (Hue and Cry)
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
Oh, you know,’ I said. ‘You say to yourself I’ll spend next week on Christmas shopping and then the week before Christmas on writing letters and going round the tenants and I’ll just be able to fit it all in, and then you look at your diary and you realize that next week is the week before Christmas which means there’s exactly half as much time as you thought there was and you haven’t a hope in hell.
Catriona McPherson (The Burry Man's Day (Dandy Gilver, #2))
As a nation, we began by declaring that ’all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
Although per capita income doubled during the half-century, not all sectors of society shared equally in this abundance. While both rich and poor enjoyed rising incomes, their inequality of wealth widened significantly. As the population began to move from farm to city, farmers increasingly specialized in the production of crops for the market rather than for home consumption. The manufacture of cloth, clothing, leather goods, tools, and other products shifted from home to shop and from shop to factory. In the process many women experienced a change in roles from producers to consumers with a consequent transition in status. Some craftsmen suffered debasement of their skills as the division of labor and power-driven machinery eroded the traditional handicraft methods of production and transformed them from self-employed artisans to wage laborers. The resulting potential for class conflict threatened the social fabric of this brave new republic.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
If the Nephilim were the offspring of demons and women, what if Satan’s intent was to pervert the human gene pool so that the Savior promised in the garden of Eden could never come?” It would have made the Flood merciful beyond dispute because God sending the Flood would have purified the gene pool and allowed for the redemption of humankind through Jesus. Mercy through judgment. A theme we see all throughout the Bible, just as we see how mercy can become a sort of punishment.
Brennan S. McPherson (Flood: The Story of Noah and the Family Who Raised Him (The Fall of Man #2))
Wait till Buzz takes charge of us. A real Fascist dictatorship!" "Nonsense! Nonsense!" snorted Tasbrough. "That couldn't happen here in America, not possibly! We're a country of freemen." "The answer to that," suggested Doremus Jessup, "if Mr. Falck will forgive me, is 'the hell it can't!' Why, there's no country in the world that can get more hysterical—yes, or more obsequious!—than America. Look how Huey Long became absolute monarch over Louisiana, and how the Right Honorable Mr. Senator Berzelius Windrip owns his State. Listen to Bishop Prang and Father Coughlin on the radio—divine oracles, to millions. Remember how casually most Americans have accepted Tammany grafting and Chicago gangs and the crookedness of so many of President Harding's appointees? Could Hitler's bunch, or Windrip's, be worse? Remember the Kuklux Klan? Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut 'Liberty cabbage' and somebody actually proposed calling German measles 'Liberty measles'? And wartime censorship of honest papers? Bad as Russia! Remember our kissing the—well, the feet of Billy Sunday, the million-dollar evangelist, and of Aimée McPherson, who swam from the Pacific Ocean clear into the Arizona desert and got away with it? Remember Voliva and Mother Eddy?... Remember our Red scares and our Catholic scares, when all well-informed people knew that the O.G.P.U. were hiding out in Oskaloosa, and the Republicans campaigning against Al Smith told the Carolina mountaineers that if Al won the Pope would illegitimatize their children? Remember Tom Heflin and Tom Dixon? Remember when the hick legislators in certain states, in obedience to William Jennings Bryan, who learned his biology from his pious old grandma, set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution?... Remember the Kentucky night-riders? Remember how trainloads of people have gone to enjoy lynchings? Not happen here? Prohibition—shooting down people just because they might be transporting liquor—no, that couldn't happen in America! Why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours!
Sinclair Lewis (It Can't Happen Here)
Elle: "I didn't think I could fall more in love with you, but you've proven me wrong, Tristan Wade Daniels. I love you.” His lips curved into a wide smile. "Say it again.” I stepped on my tiptoes and leaned in, my lips a breath away from touching his. I whispered, "I love the way my body craves more of you. I love the way your hands feel while touching me. I love the way your lips taste…” My eyes darted to his lips, and then back to his eyes. "I love how much you care. I don't just love you, but everything about you. I always have, Tristan. I always will.
Angela McPherson (Addiction (Distraction #2))
This was a transformation from what the late Isaiah Berlin described as “Negative Liberty” to “Positive Liberty.”4 The idea of negative liberty is perhaps more familiar. It can be defined as the absence of restraint, a freedom from interference by outside authority with individual thought or behavior. A law requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet would be, under this definition, to prevent them from enjoying the freedom to go bareheaded if they wish. Negative liberty, therefore, can be described as freedom from. Positive liberty can best be understood as freedom to . It is not necessarily incompatible with negative liberty, but has a different focus or emphasis. Freedom of the press is generally viewed as a negative liberty—freedom from interference with what a writer writes or a reader reads. But an illiterate person suffers from a denial of positive liberty; he is unable to enjoy the freedom to write or read whatever he chooses, not because some authority prevents him from doings so but because he cannot read or write anything. He suffers not the absence of a negative liberty—freedom from—but of a positive liberty—freedom to read and write. The remedy lies not in removal of restraint but in achievement of the capacity to read and write.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
By the latter part of 1861 the War Department had taken over from the states the responsibility for feeding, clothing, and arming Union soldiers. But this process was marred by inefficiency, profiteering, and corruption. To fill contracts for hundreds of thousands of uniforms, textile manufacturers compressed the fibers of recycled woolen goods into a material called “shoddy.” This noun soon became an adjective to describe uniforms that ripped after a few weeks of wear, shoes that fell apart, blankets that disintegrated, and poor workmanship in general on items necessary to equip an army of half a million men and to create its support services within a few short months.
James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era)
there’s no country in the world that can get more hysterical—yes, or more obsequious!—than America. Look how Huey Long became absolute monarch over Louisiana, and how the Right Honorable Mr. Senator Berzelius Windrip owns his State. Listen to Bishop Prang and Father Coughlin on the radio—divine oracles, to millions. Remember how casually most Americans have accepted Tammany grafting and Chicago gangs and the crookedness of so many of President Harding’s appointees? Could Hitler’s bunch, or Windrip’s, be worse? Remember the Kuklux Klan? Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut ‘Liberty cabbage’ and somebody actually proposed calling German measles ‘Liberty measles’? And wartime censorship of honest papers? Bad as Russia! Remember our kissing the—well, the feet of Billy Sunday, the million-dollar evangelist, and of Aimée McPherson, who swam from the Pacific Ocean clear into the Arizona desert and got away with it? Remember Voliva and Mother Eddy?. . .Remember our Red scares and our Catholic scares, when all well-informed people knew that the O.G.P.U. were hiding out in Oskaloosa, and the Republicans campaigning against Al Smith told the Carolina mountaineers that if Al won the Pope would illegitimatize their children? Remember Tom Heflin and Tom Dixon? Remember when the hick legislators in certain states, in obedience to William Jennings Bryan, who learned his biology from his pious old grandma, set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution?. . .Remember the Kentucky night-riders? Remember how trainloads of people have gone to enjoy lynchings? Not happen here? Prohibition—shooting down people
Sinclair Lewis (It Can't Happen Here)