The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
Interpretation
The U.S. Constitution is adaptable and innovative in governing a diverse nation.
Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasizes the remarkable flexibility and resilience of the U.S. Constitution, which allows it to address various challenges and changes in society while maintaining the core principles of governance. This elasticity enables the Constitution to remain relevant and effective as the nation evolves over time.
In practice
In a discussion about the effectiveness of the U.S. government, this quote can highlight the Constitution's ability to adapt.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
And of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no "after", in the "ever after" of a Witch there is no "happily"; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is-alas, or perhaps thank mercy-no telling. She was dead, dead, and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice.
If it brings me to my knees, it's a bad religion
Philanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive officers out of saints.
If someone puts up the argument that King Louis gave the Romagna to Pope Alexander, and the kingdom of Naples to Spain, in order to avoid a war, I would answer as I did before: that you should never let things get out of hand in order to avoid war. You don't avoid such a war, you merely postpone it, to your own disadvantage.
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.
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