It is, therefore, a great source of virtue for the practiced mind to learn, bit by bit, first to change about in visible and transitory things, so that afterwards it may be possible to leave them behind altogether. The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. The tender soul has fixed his love on one spot in the world; the strong man has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his. From boyhood I have dwelt on foreign soil and I know with what grief sometimes the mind takes leave of the narrow hearth of a peasant's hut, and I know too how frankly it afterwards disdains marble firesides and panelled halls.

~ Hugh Of Saint-Victor

Hugh Of Saint-Victor Exceptionalism Exile Place Sentimentality Wisdom

Trademark yourself with the mark of excellence.

~ Mark F. Lamoure

Mark F. Lamoure Excellence Excellent Adventure Excellent Leadership Excellent People Excellent Quality Excellently Exceptional Exceptionalism High Prformance High Quality High Quality People Self Confidence Self Help Self Improvement Self Realization Self Worth

Exceptional men do not hold their experiences to be out of the ordinary or of interest to anyone else. Unlike the trodden fungus-men, they are not so ignorantly and presumptuously self-absorbed. They are nobody and they know it. They shun notice. They are exceedingly rare.

~ Nick Tosches

Nick Tosches Exceptionalism Humility Men

We live, I suppose, in the unconfessed hope that the rules will at some point be broken, along with the normal course of things and custom and history, and that this will happen to us, that we will experience it, that we — that is, I alone — will be the ones to see it. We always aspire, I suppose, to being the chosen ones, and it is unlikely otherwise that we would be prepared to live out the entire course of an entire life, which, however short or long, gradually gets the better of us.

~ Javier Marías

Javier Marías Delusion Exceptionalism Optimism

Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.

~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel J. Boorstin Exceptionalism Freedom Opportunity

To evoke another great phrase of the American revolutionary heritage — widely though inconclusively attributed to Thomas Jefferson — the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Such a phrase is merely trite, however, unless we consider its deeper implications. For the French revolutionaries, as for so many regimes that have succeeded them across the world up to the present day, the call for vigilance against enemies, both external and internal, was the first step on the road to the loss of liberty, and lives.Of far more significance, and the true and tragic lesson of the epic descent into The Terror, is the summons to vigilance against ourselves — that we should not assume that we are righteous, and our enemies evil; that we can see clearly, and to others are blinded by malice or folly; that we can abrogate the fragile rights of others in the name of our own certainty and all will be well regardless.If we do not honor the message of human rights born in the revolutions of 1776 and 1786, as the French in their case most certainly failed to do, we too are on the road to The Terror.

~ David Andress

David Andress America Exceptionalism France Freedom Imperialism Patriotism The Terror

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.

~ Edward Said

Edward Said Civilization Death Democracy Destruction Empire Enlighten Exceptionalism Force Imperialism Intellectuals Misery Mission Mission Civilizatrice

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as [inherently] exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

~ Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin Corruption Equality Exceptionalism Government Corruption Imperialism Irony Nationalism Political Corruption Racism

There is no inconsistency whatsoever between the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land and the exis­tence of a racial caste system in the era of colorblindness. The current sys­tem of control depends on black exceptionalism, it is not disproved or undermined by it.

~ Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander Barack Obama Black Exceptionalism Caste Exceptionalism Obama Race

Autograph your life with a signature of excellence.

~ Mark Lamoure

Mark Lamoure Commit Yourself To Excellence Excellence Excellent Exceptionalism High Caliber High Quality Preeminent Quality Superior Supreme