Moral education

"Since democracy depends upon citizens’ “obedience to the unenforceable,” why then the stiff resistance to moral education which could emphasize widely shared and time-tested principles?"

- Neal A. Maxwell

It is not our part to master all the tides

"Other evils there are that may come... Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.  What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

- Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Two great parties

"There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and converting measures in opposition to each other."

- John Adams

Public business

"Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody.  It will be done by somebody or other.  If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.  A young man should weigh well his plans.  Integrity should be preserved in all events, as essential to his happiness, through every stage of his existence.  His first maxim then should be to place his honor out of reach of all men.  In order to do this he must make it a rule never to become dependent on public employments for subsistence.  Let him have a trade, a profession, a farm, a shop, something where he can honestly live, and then he may engage in public affairs, if invited, upon independent principles.  My advice to my children is to maintain an independent character."

- John Adams, to his son John Quincy

No wonder the adversary steadily promotes...

No wonder the adversary steadily promotes all the ancient sins, not because he is uninventive but because his harvest is so constant.

- Neal A. Maxwell