Barack Obama on America

Don’t shortchange the future, because of fear in the present.

Contrary to the rumors that you’ve heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.

Democracy is a garden that has to be tended.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Kansas City Star (7 May 1918)

• Politics

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

Winston Churchill1874–1965

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

H. L. Mencken1880–1956‘Notes On Journalism’ in the Chicago Tribune (19 September 1926)