Fall 2006

Many of us have recently completed our summer vacations - it is fun to visit remote (and sometimes exotic places) - but the simple truth is, we live where we live, by choice.

For many, the choice is driven by the 1st and the 15th of the month, but additionally, there are other social or family reasons that dictate "home". The following excerpts, mostly lifted from a 1990 Forbes magazine article, are a reminder of the driving factors behind the greatness of the United States of America:

It is right to prefer one's own country to others, because we are children and citizens before we can be travelers or philosophers. - George Santayana.

After visiting several of America's most 'fashionable' playgrounds, I have reached the conclusion that men who work hard enjoy life most. The men at such places can be divided into two classes: first, busy men of affairs … and, second, rich loafers. I was impressed by the obvious enjoyment that the corporate heads and other important executives were deriving from their vacation activities. The idle rich fellows, on the other hand, although indulging in exactly the same activities, were bored. - B.C. Forbes

I like the Americans for a great many reasons. I like them because even the modern thing called industrialism has not entirely destroyed in them the very ancient thing called democracy. I like them because they have a respect for work that really curbs the human tendency to snobbishness. - G.K. Chesterton.

What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones. - Ortega y Gasset.

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Wherever we choose to call home, life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering … and it is over much too soon. - Woody Allen

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home. - Winston Churchill.

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