One should not ascribe the evil deeds of individual leaders or political regimes to an innate fault of the Russian people and their country.

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers . . . we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Human rights' are a fine thing, but how can we make ourselves sure that our rights do not expand at the expense of the rights of others. A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity. If we do not wish to be ruled by a coercive authority, then each of us must rein himself in...A stable society is achieved not by balancing opposing forces but by conscious self-limitation: by the principle that we are always duty-bound to defer to the sense of moral justice.

As for Europe, its claims towards Russia are fairly transparently based on fears about energy, unjustified fears at that.

Yes, you live with your feet in the mud and there's no time to be thinking about how you got in or how you're going to get out.

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?