We ought not to endeavor to revise history according to our latter day notions of what things ought to have been, or upon the theory that the past is simply a reflection of the present

Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.

If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul.

I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin.

Every right is married to a duty, every freedom owes a corresponding responsibility.

If the state - and within the state, the judiciary particularly - harasses and undermines the Church , in any society the state undoes itself.

Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.

Real literature is something much better than a harmless instrument for getting through idle hours. The purpose of great literature is to help us to develop into full human beings.

A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.

The Secular City, having legislated and litigated itself out of any entanglement with the City of God, would be a hell upon earth .

Privilege, in any society, is the reward of duties performed.

Loneliness is a hell of a drug.

hope is just a feeling...will is the real thing....

New York - that unnatural city where every one is an exile, none more so than the American

Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices.

I bring a lot of passion to my life and my politics - I don't mind saying there is a very strong Latin component to it.

Hopefully we have a slightly different vibe, but also East Side is where a lot young people live. It is a really fun, trendy, funky neighborhood, and it is ripe for satire, that area specifically.

Love consumes us only in the measure of our self-surrender.

Ignorance is the mother of suspicion.

Now 'tis spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted; Suffer them now and they'll o'ergrow the garden.