The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.

It is in the nature of tyranny to deride the will of the people as the voice of the mob, and to denounce the cry for freedom as the roar of anarchy.

Never look for the story in the 'lede.' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.

It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

When duty calls, that is when character counts.

George Washington had a tough second term.

A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.