I say statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, most legislation is moral legislations because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres in life.

Most presidents come to Washington bright as freshly minted dimes and leave much diminished.

When a politician says the debate is over, you can be sure of two things; the debate is raging; and he's losing it.

Hyperbole expands in societies where articulateness atrophies.

The great task of life is transmission: the task of transmitting the essential tools and graces of life from our parents to our children

Society flourishes when and only when its molecular unit, the family, flourishes. We know that lasting improvement comes only in the small increments produced by individuals adhering to the simple rules of life.

Government has the role of suiting people for freedom. People aren't made for freedom spontaneously. There's sort of a 19-year race between when people are born and when they become adults. And government has a role in making them, at the end of 19 years, suited to be upright, trustworthy repositories of popular sovereignty.