If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

More than any gift or toy, ornament of tree, let us resolve that this Christmas shall be, like that first Christmas, a celebration of interior treasures.

So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride - the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.

What's happening in Cuba is not a failure of the Cuban people. It's a failure of Fidel Castro and the Communists.

This democracy of ours, which sometimes we've treated so lightly, is more than ever a comfortable cloak, so let us not tear it asunder, for no man knows, once it is destroyed, where or when he will find its protective warmth again.

There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war. It's to be prepared for peace. There's a sign over the entrance to the Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington state, and that sign says it all: 'Peace is our profession'.

The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.