Some Christians worried about a faith that was so embracing as to be meaningless, that exalted not the Almighty so much as the American way of life. When civil religion bleached the challenge from faith and left behind a watery patriotism, there was room for concern.

Time is valuable people are busy.

Maybe as times get worse we get better. Our pain makes us feel other people's too our fear lets us practice valor we are tense, and tender as well. And among the things we can no longer afford are things we never really wanted anyway.

[Former chief executives] come away thinking that America needs a strong, functioning presidency to succeed, and they become very protective of that office. Democrats and Republicans alike are willing to put aside their own party's self-interest to preserve the presidency. That's been true over the decades.

On a normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere.

The challenge was that it was harder to be subtle than strident.

In his final remarks to the White House staff, on the day he resigned his office, Nixon applied a version of the lesson to himself. “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

A runner's stride is not perfectly efficient.

Death will never be pretty - its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting.

Nixon urged Clinton to maintain his relationship with Yeltsin but make contact with other democrats in Russia. He warned Clinton away from some ultranationalists and toward those interested in liberty and reform. He pressed Clinton to replace his ambassador in Kiev and concentrate future U.S. economic aid on Ukraine, where it would matter most.

There may be no less original idea than the notion that our hearts hold dominion over our heads.

Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better.

Praise of blame in the moment means little: it is how their decisions play out over time that matters, and so the redemption they're looking for is of a more lasting kind. They are one another's peers who else can really judge them?

I would like to see every newspaper and every magazine have a network of bureaus all over the world, gathering news.

Americas presidents tend to die young. Maybe it is in the nature of the men who reach such heights, or of the job once they attain it.

Eisenhower advocated a variety of strong actions which he had never taken when he was president. Maybe this was just the pattern of former presidents maybe it reflected how much the circumstances had changed on the ground.

If Heaven is willing to sing to us, it is little to ask that we be ready to listen.

Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use.