In 1779, Jefferson proposed, for his state of Virginia, a guarantee of equality for citizens of all beliefs, and nonbeliefs—meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, Jefferson wrote, t...
I close. We are not we must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly they must not I am sure they will not be broken...
He said gloomily, despairing, sadly: ‘How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one’s country no better than if one had never lived for it.
Desiring a woman he was not free to approach, bound to a woman he had decided he didn’t love—facing all the while the crack-up of his political career—Lincoln now faced a direct challenge to the one a...
As decisively as Lincoln left the rural life, he left the Baptist church as well. In New Salem he became widely known as an infidel. He rejected eternal damnation, innate sin, the divinity of Jesus, a...
Creeping fear of madness often accompanies depression. Sufferers wonder if their black moods will ever lift, or if their feelings of alienation from the healthy world will deepen and widen. These fear...
Because of them, he worked all the harder in his thirties and forties to make himself, emotionally as well as materially, and go on to do the special work he longed for. Perseverance and forbearance b...
You say you are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new a...
Suffering was not a punishment from beyond or a malevolent infestation of the soul. Like the earth turning on its axis or energy passing through a conductor, it was a part of the natural world, to be...
The Perspectives of Psychiatry, Paul R. McHugh and Phillip R. Slavney identify four approaches to a suffering person.
Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.
In particular, he named three kinds of troubles that could beset a person with a nervous temperament: poor weather, isolation or idleness, and stressful events.
As late as 1820, families made three quarters of all goods—food, clothing, tools—for their own use.
You, she said, are the ugliest man I ever saw. Sadly, the man answered, Perhaps so, but I can’t help that. No, the woman allowed, but you might stay at home.