...the very notion that a candidate should openly solicit votes violated the principled presumption that such behavior itself represented a confession of unworthiness for national office.

And the only thing to do with a sin is to confess, do penance and then, after some kind of decent interval, ask for forgiveness.

To my three sons, Peter, Scott, and Alexander who pulled me from the 18th Century and back into the present on a regular basis and therefore made me a better person, thank you. And to my wife, who sits at the table there. Who is right about almost everything.

Some models of self-control are able to achieve their serenity easily because the soul fires never burn brightly to begin with.

Chronology, so the saying goes, is the last refuge of the feeble-minded and the only resort for historians.

[quoting someone else] the American constitution is a document designed by geniuses to be eventually interpreted by idiots

I would say readers can trust my work more than anyone else's.