The biggest obstacle to people becoming better is that you have to really want to be a good person in order to be a better person, and most people would rather be other things.

Is there a point of taxation wherein even a Democrat would acknowledge it is thievery by the government?

Very rarely do people make big compromises with their integrity. Almost every compromise is a small one that is easily justified. The downhill slide is usually a result of many little compromises.

Citizens of liberal welfare states become increasingly narcissistic. The great preoccupations of vast numbers of Brits, Frenchmen, Germans and other Western Europeans are how much vacation time they will have an how early they can retire and be supported by the state.

Most young people have tremendous respect for older people's views.

Those of us have minimized expectations walk around with a greater sense of thankfulness (because so many wonderful things that we didn't expect come our way each day).

Our society is obsessed with personal rights, but it will survive only if we adopt personal obligations.