The Soviet Union tried for 70 years to plant Marxism with bayonets in Eastern Europe. Today there are more Marxists on the Harvard faculty than there are in Eastern Europe.
As Aristotle said, happiness is not a condition that is produced or stands on its own; rather, it is a frame of mind that accompanies an activity. But another frame of mind comes first. It is a steely determination to do well.
In the annals of American blunders, the Bay of Pigs may have been even more feckless, and the invasion of Iraq more costly, but we cannot yet calculate the cost of teaching Iran and others, by our role in the casual overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi, the peril of not having nuclear weapons.
The future is usually just like the past- right up to the moment when it isn’t.
The most important business of one generation is the raising of the next generation. Nothing else you do in life will be as deeply satisfying...
One radical free spirit nonconformist is pretty much like another.
Society flourishes when and only when its molecular unit, the family, flourishes. We know that lasting improvement comes only in the small increments produced by individuals adhering to the simple rules of life...
The pursuit of perfection prevents achievement of the satisfactory.
We have far more to fear from swift than from torpid government.
Chicago Cubs fans are ninety percent scar tissue.
Since 1946, the Cubs have had two problems: They put too few runs on the scoreboard and the other guys put too many. So what is the new management improving? The scoreboard.
Term limits would make Congress bolder, more independent, and less risk-averse.
I am opposed to term limits because if we did not have seasoned professionals, we would not have the good government that we have.
On a throne at the center of a sense of humor sits a capacity for irony. All wit rests on a cheerful awareness of life’s incongruities. It is a gentling awareness, and no politician without it should be allowed near power.
Stalin’s henchman Molotov, 96, died old and in bed, a privilege he helped to deny to millions.
The Berlin Wall is the defining achievement of socialism.
The theory is that election to Congress is tantamount to being dispatched to Washington on a looting raid for the enrichment of your state or district, and no other ethic need inhibit the feeding frenzy.
Remember Henry Adam’s jest that the succession of presidents from Washington to Grant disproved the theory of evolution?
Only in football is long-term injury the result not of accidents but of the game played properly.
Baseball’s rich in wonderful statistics, but it’s hard to find one more beautiful than Stan Musial’s hitting record. He didn’t care where he was, he just hit.