Quote

I love eulogies. They are the most moving kind of speech because they attempt to pluck meaning from the fog, and on short order, when the emotions are still ragged and raw and susceptible to leaps.

Peggy Noonan

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Peggy Noonan
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: August 7
Author
Journalist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Still
Emotions
Leaps
Kind
Speech
Eulogy
Love
Meaning
Ragged
Short
Pluck
Emotion
Susceptible
Moving
Fog
Order
Leap
Stills
Attempt

More quotes by Peggy Noonan

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In ancient Israel and Rome the judge had appeared as a stand-in for the divine, and corruption was a blinding of the representative of the divine.
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The tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
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Boundaries aren't all bad. That's why there are walls around mental institutions.
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The thing political figures fear most is a terror event that will ruin their careers. The biggest thing they fear is that a bomb goes off and it can be traced to something they did or didn’t do, an action they did or didn’t support. They all fear being accused of not doing enough to keep the citizenry safe.
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When you forget yourself and your fear, when you get beyond self-consciousness because your mind is thinking about what you are trying to communicate, you become a better communicator
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Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service.
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The Democrats often seem like the Not Republican Party, no more and no less.
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The Democratic Party will now stick with its guy forever, no matter how harmful he is. Perhaps you call that loyalty, and perhaps there's something to it, but a bigger part, I believe, is that you have come to think that winning is everything-that victory is the purpose of politics.
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The biggest improvement in the flow of information in America in our lifetimes is that no single group controls the news anymore.
Peggy Noonan
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Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.
Peggy Noonan
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My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage.
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Speeches are more important in politics than talking points, as a rule, and are better remembered.
Peggy Noonan
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Some of the stupidest brilliant people who ever lived.
Peggy Noonan
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Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.
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What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water? What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No.1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?
Peggy Noonan
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If you commit a big crime then you are crazy, and the more heinous the crime the crazier you must be. Therefore you are not responsible, and nothing is your fault.
Peggy Noonan
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At some point, don't voters start to see all of public life as one big polluted river? And if they do, don't they stop saying things like That's a busted tire floating by and That's an old shoe?
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In the 1950s and '60s the [democrat] party included many obviously earnest and thoughtful liberals who supported goals that were in line with and expressions of serious beliefs. They believed that America was an exceptional country.
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Abortion is either OK or it's not.
Peggy Noonan
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We are all afraid. That's the thing that unites all truly successful people: fear, fear of failing, fear of criticism, fear of letting down the team in some way. That why they try so hard, that's why they pay attention to detail and try to get every possible duck in a row. It's fear
Peggy Noonan