In politics I am growing indifferent - I would like it, if I could now return to my planting and books at home
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to disengage from the complexities of politics and return to simpler, more fulfilling pursuits like gardening and reading.
Ulysses S. Grant's quote reflects a common sentiment of exhaustion with political affairs and a yearning for a return to more peaceful and personally satisfying activities. It highlights the contrast between the often tumultuous nature of politics and the tranquility found in hobbies such as planting and reading, emphasizing the importance of personal fulfillment over public life.
In practice
During a political debate, one could use this quote to emphasize the desire for individuals to focus on personal passions instead of divisive politics.
The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation.
Hold fast to the Bible. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future.
Let us labor for the security of free thought, free speech, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges for all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion;.... leave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate.
When news of the surrender first reached our lines our men commenced firing a salute of a hundred guns in honor of the victory. I at once sent word, however, to have it stopped. The Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.
I have made it a rule of my life to trust a man long after other people gave him up, but I don't see how I can ever trust any human being again.
A hero does for others. He would do anything for people he loves, because he knows it would make their lives better. I am not that kind of person, but I want you to be. You could give something to her, to me, to those children in the quarter. You could give something I never could ... The white people out there are saying you don't have it-that you're a hog, not a man. But I know they are wrong.
Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves they will seek it, cherish it, and view any deprivation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.
The supramental transformation, the supramental evolution must carry with it a lifting of mind, life and body out of themselves into a greater way of being in which yet their own ways and powers would be, not suppressed or abolished, but perfected and fulfilled by the self-exceeding.
Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.
Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity.
We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.
Complexity excites the mind, and order rewards it. In the garden, one finds both, including vanishingly small orders too complex to spot, and orders so vast the mind struggles to embrace them.
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