You can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past. They lived in the present. It is their present, not our present, and they don't know how it's going to come out. They weren't just like we are because they lived in that very different time. You can't understand them if you don't understand how they perceived reality.

Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer...

The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.

Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life.

To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.

Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.

Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.