"The future has a way of arriving unannounced."

"The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement."

"Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues."

"There may be more poetry than justice in poetic justice."

"World War II was the last government program that really worked."

"It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is."

"Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence."

"Conservatism is realism, about human nature and government's competence."

"Capitalism does not merely make people better off, it makes them better."

"Liberalism argues that equal dependence on government minimizes social conflicts."

"A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience."

"Pessimism is as American as apple pie - frozen apple pie with a slice of processed cheese."

"Americans are overreaching; overreaching is the most admirable and most American of the many American excesses."

"Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it - short-term pain for long-term gain."

"The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice and securing the blessings of liberty."

“Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.”

"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal."

"Conservatism embraces President Kennedy's exhortation to "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country,"

"Liberalism increasingly seeks to deliver equality in the form of equal dependence of more and more people for more and more things on government."

"Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions."

“Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country; President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs.”

“Revisiting the Revolutionary War is a bracing reminder that the fate of a continent, and the shape of the modern world, turned on the free choices of remarkably few Americans defying an empire”

"Some parents say it is toy guns that make boys warlike. But give a boy a rubber duck and he will seize its neck like the butt of a pistol and shout "Bang!"

"We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge."

"A society that thinks the choice between ways of living is just a choice between equally eligible 'lifestyles' turns universities into academic cafeterias offering junk food for the mind."

"in the lexicon of the political class, the word "sacrifice" means that the citizens are supposed to mail even more of their income to Washington so that the political class will not have to sacrifice the pleasure of spending it."

"If you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government."

"If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word National."