I am forty-five years old. Two-thirds of a long life are past, and I have done nothing to distinguish it by usefulness to my country or mankind. I have always lived with, I hope, a suitable sense of my dutes in society, and with a sincere desire to perform them. But passions, indolence, weakness, and infirmity have sometimes made mwe swerve from my better knowledge of right and lmost constantly paralyzed my efforts of good. I have no heavy charge upon my conscience, for which I bless my Maker, as well as for all the enjoyments that He has libersally bestowed upon me. I pray for his gracious kindness in the future. But it is time to cease forming fruitless resolutions.

John Quincy Adams, July 11, 1812 (while United States Ambassador to Russia)

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
Now heaven knows, anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four-letter words writing prose,
Anything goes.

The world has gone mad today,
And good’s bad today, and black’s white today,
And day’s night today,
When most guys today that women prize today
Are just silly gigolos.

So though I’m not a great romancer,
I know that you’re bound to answer
When I propose, anything goes.

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
Now heaven knows, anything goes.

And good authors too who once knew
Better words, now only use four-letter words
Writing prose, cause anything goes.

The world has gone mad today,
And good’s bad today, and black’s white today,
And day’s night today,
When most guys today that women prize today
Are just silly gigolos.

So though I’m not a great romancer,
I know that you’re bound to answer
When I propose, anything goes.

May I say before this record spins to a close,
I want you to know anything goes.

We must make the best of the men as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish.

“I am sorry for the men who do not read the Bible every day; I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and of the pleasure. It is one of the most singular books in the world, for every time you open it, some old text that you have read a score of times suddenly beams with a new meaning. There is no other book I know of, of which this is true; there is no other book that yields its meaning so personally, that seems to fit itself so intimately to the very spirit that is seeking its guidance.”

“There’s nothing on [television] worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet.”

Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, to his children. In the 1930s.