The poorer is a family, the greater is the proportion of the total outgo which must be used for food... The proportion of the outgo used for food, other things being equal, is the best measure of the material standard of living of a population. Ernst Engel
The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.
George Bancroft
While it's very hard to know exactly how to measure public opinion there, because there's no really good polling, the fact of the matter is that in all the polls I've seen the vast majority of the Iraqis prefer to be free and are pleased that the coalition freed them. Paul Bremer
History uses a unit of measure for time that is different from that of the lifespan of the individual, whereas man is only too ready to measure the evolution of history by his own yardstick. Gustav Stresemann
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. Carl Jung
At a time when the insurgents are saying that time is working against them, my Democratic colleagues are introducing a measure to set a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq that will undercut the momentum that the insurgents themselves say we have built in Iraq. Kit Bond
