“The first branch, the legislative, consists of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate; this branch writes the laws of the United States. The executive branch, which consists of the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States, the Executive Office of the President, and all of the cabinet departments, is tasked with enforcing those laws. The judicial branch, which consists of the United States Supreme Court and the federal courts as designated by Congress, has the responsibility of administering justice through a court system.”

“Thinking Big means opening our horizons, reaching for new possibilities in our lives, being open to whatever God has in store for us on the road ahead. Thinking Big is another way of restating one of my mother’s favorite sayings: “You can do anything they can do — only you must try to do it better!” That’s Thinking Big.”

“try to inspire them to consider the power and implications of such potential. I tell them that no computer network on earth can come close to the capacity of the average human brain. This resource that each one of us has is a tremendous gift from God—the most complex organ system in the entire universe.”

“Similarly, if the American people and their representatives do not know and understand what is in our Constitution, others will take advantage of them. Only when we understand the law of our land can we effectively hold our representatives accountable. Knowledge is power, and we must refuse to be bullied.”

“Some historical revisionists have also attempted to diminish the role of God and religion in our nation’s past. A careful examination of the records, however, makes it quite clear that religion was a very important factor in the development of our nation. In 1831 when Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to try to unravel the secrets to the success of a fledgling nation that was already competing with the powers of Europe on virtually every level, he discovered that we had a fantastic public educational system that rendered anyone who had finished the second grade completely literate. He was more astonished to discover that the Bible was an important tool used to teach moral principles in our public schools. No particular religious denomination was revered, but rather commonly accepted biblical truths became the backbone of our social structure.”

“There have been many stories recently about the bullying epidemic that seems to be occurring in our public school system. We should not be terribly surprised by this because children emulate what they see adults doing. One does not have to look at television for very long or listen to the radio for an extended period before one sees supposedly rational and mature adults vehemently attacking one another, calling each other names and acting like third graders.”

“mother instilled in me a deep respect for the potential of the human brain, and that respect has deepened over the years to an attitude I can only describe as awe. Every time I open a child’s head and see a brain, I marvel at the mystery: This is what makes every one of us who we are. This is what holds all our memories, all our thoughts, all our dreams. This is what makes us different from each other in millions of ways. And yet if I could expose my brain and your brain and place them side by side, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference—even though we might be very different people. That still amazes me. Inside each human brain are billions and billions of complex interconnections, neurons and synapses, which science has only barely begun to understand. When you add to that the mystery of mind”

“While wisdom dictates the need for education, education does not necessarily make one wise.”

“What will maintain the pinnacle position of our nation in the world: the ability to shoot a 25-foot jump shot, or the ability to solve a quadratic equation?”

“We also received food stamps and bus tokens. Even though she was not a welfare mom, my mother still very much appreciated the government assistance we did receive from time to time. Still, I had an inherent dislike for government assistance and was frankly quite embarrassed that we had to accept anything from them.”

“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 insidious nature of socialism, cloaked in a façade of compassion, makes it very dangerous to an uneducated and trusting populace. And as socialism creates dependency, it is well on its way to eliminating freedom of choice and incentives for high productivity and innovation.”

“And, you know, what we need to do—[applause]what we need to do in this PC world is forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought, and we need to concentrate on being respectful to those people with whom we disagree.”

“Finally, we the people exercise power by speaking our minds. Many of the early patriots in our nation had experienced tyranny that prevented them from expressing their opinions. They could not speak against the king or against the established church. They knew that America’s citizens would need to be free to express themselves if they were to rule. Thus they set in place the Constitution’s First Amendment, guaranteeing the freedom of speech and expression. We’ve preserved this freedom so that our government doesn’t usually try to prevent the people from speaking. Recognizing this achievement, many assert that there is no restriction of speech in the United States and that everyone is completely free to express themselves. Unfortunately, this is a naive claim. Today the political correctness (PC) police are the biggest threat to America’s freedom of speech, and they are doing their best to squelch the opinions of “we the People.” There is not an officially established PC police force, but its members exist in government, throughout the media, in educational institutions, etc. Members of the PC police are those who carefully monitor the speech and behavior of anyone they consider to be a threat to their leftist ideological domination. The PC police do not care that people disagree with them, as long as those people remain silent. But if someone openly disagrees with them, they demonize that person with ridicule and infantile name-calling. This kind of speech policing has created fear in a large portion of our populace, causing them to remain silent rather than face the repercussions of expressing themselves honestly.”

“I am convinced that knowledge is power - to overcome the past, to change our own situations, to fight new obstacles, to make better decisions.”