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.
I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice.
The love of power, like the love of money, increases with the possession of it; and we know in what ruin these baneful passions have involved human societies in all ages when they have been let loose and suffered to rage uncontrolled - There is no restraint like the pervading eye of the virtuous citizens.
Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled βenemy?
Kabul is... a thousand tragedies per square mile.
Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
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