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That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — or at least, most of the time.

 

Barack Obama

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Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation—not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." That is the true genius of America—a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.

 

Barack Obama

 

This breaking of the limitations of hospitality to a small in-group, of offering it to the broadest possible in-group, and saying, you determine who your guest is, might be taken as the key message of Christianity.
Then in the year 300 and something, finally the Church got recognition. The bishops were made into something like magistrates. The first things those guys do, these new bishops, is create houses of hospitality, institutionalizing what was given to us as a vocation by Jesus, as a personal vocation, institutionalizing it, creating roofs, refuges, for foreigners. Immediately, very interesting, quite a few of the great Christian thinkers of that time, 1600 years ago (John Chrysostom is one), shout: "If you do that, if you institutionalize charity, if you make charity or hospitality into an act of a non-person, a community, Christians will cease to remain famous for what we are now famous for, for having always an extra mattress, a crust of old bread and a candle, for him who might knock at our door." But, for political reasons, the Church became, from the year 400 or 500 on, the main device for roughly a thousand years of proving that the State can be Christian by paying the Church to take care institutionally of small fractions of those who had needs, relieving the ordinary Christian household of the most uncomfortable duty of having a door, having a threshold open for him who might knock and whom I might not choose

 

Ivan Illich

 

I got a 'do not disturb' sign on my hotel door. It says 'do not disturb.' Its time to go with 'don't disturb.' Its been 'do not disturb' for too long. We need to embrace the contraction. 'Don't disturb,' 'Do Not' psyches you out. "'Do,' alright I need to disturb this guy... 'Not,' SHIT! I need to read faster!" I like to wear 'do not disturb' signs around my neck so that little kids can't tell me knock knock jokes. Say, "How you doin', nephew." "Knock Knock?" "Read the sign, punk!"

 

Mitch Hedberg

 

‘Who knocks?’ ‘I, who was beautiful,
Beyond all dreams to restore,
I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither,
And knock on the door.’

 

Walter de la Mare

 

Talking so quietly; when they hear the cars
And the knock at the door, and they look at each other quickly
And the woman goes to the door with a stiff face,
  Smoothing her dress.
"We are all good citizens here. We believe in the Perfect State."

 

Stephen Vincent Benet