A human being tends to believe that the mood of the moment, be it troubled or blithe, peaceful or stormy, is the true, native, and permanent tenor of his existence.

Presidents are elected not by direct popular vote but by 538 members of the Electoral College.

In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.

But presidential approval also became a surrogate measure of national unity and patriotism.

Knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and of good cheer.

We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way.

Responsibility for overseeing the implementation of election law typically resides with partisan officials, many with public stakes in the election outcome.

A healthy degree of party unity among Democrats and Republicans has deteriorated into bitter partisan warfare.

Congress requires states to draw single-member districts.

While Republican voters have remained universally supportive of their President, Democrats and Independents are returning to a more naturally critical stance.

Votes in federal elections are cast and counted in a highly decentralized and variable fashion, with no uniform ballots and few national standards.

I can't live without the sun shining down on my face, and I can't dream without the stars kissing me goodnight.

Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's real rebellion.

We're all alive. We're all healthy. These are the good times.

I actually am a phobic twitchy sort of nervous guy.

It sounds really stupid, I hate making cosmic comments like this but, I just let it do what it wants to do.

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

Who is the honest man? He that doth still and strongly good pursue To God, his neighbor, and himself most true: Whom neither force nor fawning can Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due.

In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue.

Knowledge without know-how is sterile. We use the word academic in a pejorative sense to identify this limitation.

The world is changing and there are new opportunities for those who are ready to join forces with those who are stronger and more experienced.