The atmosphere in which social legislation is considered is not a friend of truth.

In too many cases, if our Government had set out determined to destroy the family, it couldn't have done greater damage than some of what we see today.

Government cannot provide values to persons who have none, or who have lost those they had. It cannot provide inner peace. It can provide outlets for moral energies, but it cannot create those energies.

At 14 you are still in most respects a dependent youth, in some respects a child. At 24 you are an adult. In between, extraordinary turbulences take place.

Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do.

If we get into the mind-set where the good becomes the enemy of the best, we will get nothing.

I have no doubt that there will continue to be bumps, some serious crises indeed in our relationship with China.... Neither membership in the WTO nor normalized trade relations with the United States will magically impose the rule of law on China or institute deep-seeded respect for human rights. But it certainly has potential to advance those purposes.