“It mattered not what color your skin was on the outside, but rather what the condition was of your heart and mind inside.”

“I would love it if party labels were not allowed on ballots and people were forced to actually know who they were voting for. Blind loyalty to a party platform is tantamount to relinquishing the important duties of intelligent voting.”

“The fact that the Republican Party in particular often seems to stand for principle, only to cave in to pressure at the last minute, has turned off a huge number of voters.”

“close the wounds, and the 22-hour surgical ordeal was over. The Siamese”

“If you're good, you'll be recognized. Because people, even if they're prejudiced, are going to want the best. You just have to make being the best your goal in life.”

“Ben learned an important lesson: sometimes to survive you need to face your fear and overcome it.”

“Laws and regulations should be designed to address normal situations, while providing special mechanisms for the creation of exceptions in abnormal situations.”

“Rather than trying to control or confiscate guns, it might be smarter to offer free, public gun-safety courses. In countries like Switzerland, every man within a certain age range is required to possess a gun and to know how to use it, and Switzerland has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world.”

“There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave, There are souls that are pure and true; Then give the world the best you have, And the best will come back to you. Madeline Bridges”

“The culture in which we live stresses looking out for number one. Without adopting such a self-centered value system, we can demand the best of ourselves while we are extending our hands to help others.”

“Today we produce only 60,000 to 70,000 engineers per year, 40 percent of whom are foreigners, while China produces over 400,000 engineers per year.”

“Today our nation is in such shambles that it appears that almost anyone could do a better job of execution than the current leaders. The principal problem appears to be a lack of congruency between the president and the people. His goal seems to be a utopian society managed by the government, rather than the free, self-governing society that the founders left us. Americans want to be free, and the president’s approval ratings indicate that “we the People” do not agree with his goals. I pray that the next president will have a set of values that matches those of the majority of Americans. I pray that he will use his power to encourage the “can-do” attitude that characterized America’s rapid ascent to the pinnacle of the world.”

“Influence could get me inside the door, but my productivity and the quality of my work were the real tests.”

“Class warfare is an artificial division created for political advantage, and it should be rejected outright”

“GROWING UP changes one’s definition of what is fun — maturation does that, thankfully — so I hate to admit now that as a boy I thoroughly enjoyed throwing rocks at cars. It was a thrill to wait in hiding, ambush the car driving by, and then make our escape. Occasionally, a driver would stop their vehicle and get out to yell at us. But if we were really fortunate, they would chase us. We would run just far enough ahead to encourage them, but when they got close, we would turn on the afterburners of youth, leaving them far behind while we laughed hysterically. Once in a while, the police would come by — usually in unmarked cars — and the chase would be much more dramatic until we reached the ten-foot-tall fences at the end of the neighborhood field. To the police, it must have appeared as if they had us trapped. They had no idea, however, how practiced we were at vaulting those fences. We treated it like an Olympic event, running at full speed toward the fence and then leaping high into the air, grabbing the chain links, and allowing the momentum of our feet to swing us over the top and down on the other side. We would laugh at the police as we ran off, knowing there was no way they would follow us. Today I have great admiration for the police, who risk their lives on a daily basis to protect our lives, freedom, and property.”