No matter how big and powerful government gets, and the many services it provides, it can never take the place of volunteers.

Accepting a government grant with its accompanying rules is like marrying a girl and finding out her entire family is moving in with you before the honeymoon.

Everywhere we go, Nancy makes the world a little better.

There are no degrees of honesty.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

The arts and humanities teach us who we are and what we can be. They lie at the very core of the culture of which we're a part.

The founders of the United Nations expected that member nations would behave and vote as individuals after they had weighed the merits of an issue - rather like a great, global town meeting. The emergence of blocks and the polarization of the United Nations undermine all that this organization initially valued.