If we are surrounded by the trivial and the vicious, it is all too easy to make our peace with it.

Much of the left-liberal elite despise traditional religious beliefs ... in general, they are profoundly uncomfortable with religious institutions and the traditional values they embody.

America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world.

I have no doubt that the real irritation of those on the religious right is not that their particular creed is not embraced by the schools, but that often their creed is the only one singled out for contempt.

People of good character are not all going to come down on the same side of difficult political and social issues. Good people - people of character and moral literacy - can be conservative, and good people can be liberal. We must not permit our disputes over thorny political questions to obscure the obligation we have to offer instruction to all our young people in the area in which we have, as a society, reached a consensus: namely, on the importance of good character, and some of its pervasive particulars.

Government, obviously, cannot fill a child's emotional needs. Nor can it fill his spiritual and moral needs. Government is not a father or mother. Government has never raised a child, and it never will.

We are here to help one another along life's journey.