I don't think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism. And the kind of condition he had when he was in this society - the kind of mistreatment society gave him.
The ideas of ancient Greece helped inspire America's founding fathers as they reached for democracy. Our revolutionary ideas helped inspire Greeks as they sought their own freedom.
Writing is the process of finding something to distract you from writing, and of all the helpful distractions - adultery, alcohol and acedia, all of which aided our writing fathers - none can equal the Internet.
Wise statesmen ... established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity should look up again at the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.
In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.
I am the product of the sustained indignation of a branded grandfather, the militant protest of my grandmother, the disciplined resentment of my father and mother, and the power of the mass action of the church.
Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.
None of us will honor our Heavenly Father and our Savior more than by serving as a devoted, compassionate missionary, "For them that honour me I will honour."
The problems of our day loom ominously before us... Surrounded by the sophistication of modern living, we look heavenward for that unfailing sense of direction, that we might chart and follow a wise and proper course. Our Heavenly Father will not leave our sincere petition unanswered.