There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

Yeah, it’s pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

Great countries are those that produce great people.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

There is precious little in civilization to appeal to a Yeti.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

Family home evening is more for the purpose of teaching values and gospel principles, displaying talents and enjoying different kinds of family fun and activities.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

I’m interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society. We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it’s quite a satisfying thing to do, isn’t it?

The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion-, and even nation-centred cultures.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.

We’re a diverse society, and I think the TV is doing a great job in showing that we’re all human beings, that we can all get along, that we can all be together, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.

Some people, through luck and skill, end up with a lot of assets. If you’re good at kicking a ball, writing software, investing in stocks, it pays extremely well.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

The society in ‚The Handmaid’s Tale‘ is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated.

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

It isn’t generally the case that liberals dominate entire hierarchies. That isn’t generally how it works, because the hierarchies are usually set up so that conservatives fill up the hierarchies; it’s in the nature of hierarchy.

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society. And I think talking in everyday terms and making sure people can understand it – I think that’s important.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

I don’t have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I’m left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

The American people have not become heartless.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.