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

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.

Grand visions, even those as prescient as Washington's, must nevertheless negotiate the damnable particularities that history in the short run tosses up before history in the long run arrives to validate the vision.

Men make history, but they can never know the history they are making.

[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.

Washington's task was to transform the improbable into the inevitable.