"The fault we admit to is seldom the fault we have, but it has a certain relationship to it, a somewhat similar shape, like that of a sleeve to an arm."

"We work for praise, and dawdle once we have it."

"We come late, if at all, to wine and philosophy; whiskey and action are easier."

"Even cowards can endure hardship; only the brave can endure suspense."

"Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway."

"The young are generally full of revolt, and are often pretty revolting about it."

"If it came true, it wasn’t much of a dream."

"No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have already half thought of it ourselves."

"Others follow patterns; we alone are unpredictable."

"If you hate your lot but wouldn't trade it, it's not your lot you hate."

"What we forgive too freely doesn’t stay forgiven."

"Nobody really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why."

"The head never rules the heart, but just becomes its partner in crime."

"For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance."

"Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent."

"Despair is anger with no place to go."

"It's the most unhappy people who most fear change."

"We'd all like a reputation for generosity, and we'd all like to buy it cheap."

"The fear of being laughed at makes cowards of us all."

"We hear only half of what is said to us, understand only half of that, believe only half of that, and remember only half of that."

"Our strength is often composed of the weakness that we're damned if we're going to show."

"Once you become self-conscious, there is no end to it; once you start to doubt, there is no room for anything else."

"There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today."

"You will turn over many a futile new leaf till you learn we must all write on scratched-out pages."

"Loneliness, insomnia, and change: the fear of these is even worse than the reality."

"We are all born brave, trusting, and greedy, and most of us manage to remain greedy."

"Youth is not enough. And love is not enough. And success is not enough. And, if we could achieve it, enough would not be enough."

"Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head."

"Don't be yourself-be someone a little nicer."

"Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those changes that would make all the difference."

"Philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe explained that “no one is as hopelessly enslaved as the person who thinks he’s free.” That’s becoming an apt description for Americans who are oblivious to—or ignorant of—the liberties we’ve lost."

"It’s government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable. Coercive power goes a long way toward explaining political corruption."

"What our nation needs is a separation of “business and state” as it has a separation of “church and state.” That would mean crony capitalism and crony socialism could not survive."

"Our founders, in the words of Thomas Paine, recognized that, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

"Do-gooders fail to realize that most good is not done in the name of good but done in the name of self-interest."

"The 2000 election of George W. Bush as president gave Republicans what the Democrats have now, total control of the legislative and executive branches of government. When Bush came to office, federal spending was $1.788 trillion. When he left office, federal spending was $2.982 trillion."

"Believing that presidents have taxing and spending powers leaves Congress less politically accountable for our deepening economic quagmire. Of course, if you’re a congressman, not being held accountable is what you want."

"I grew up in central Illinois midway between Chicago and St. Louis and I made an historic blunder. All my friends became Cardinals fans and grew up happy and liberal and I became a Cubs fan and grew up embittered and conservative."

"[P]rogressivism's aim is the modification of (other people's) behavior...To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.Time was, the progressive cry was "Workers of the world unite!" or "Power to the people!" Now it is less resonant: "All aboard!""

"The cultivation -- even celebration -- of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint."

"The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity – the political allocation of wealth and opportunity – is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.”"

"The people do not decide issues, they decide who shall decide."

"For conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing."

"A decrease in the quantity of legislation generally means an increase in the quality of life."

"If, after the Foley episode – a maraschino cherry atop the Democrat’s delectable sundae of Republican miseries – the Democrats cannot gain 13 seats, they should go into another line of work."

"Reformers desperate to resuscitate taxpayer funding [of elections] cite the supposedly scandalous fact that each party's 2008 presidential campaign may spend $500 million. If so, Americans volunteering to fund the dissemination of speech about candidates for the nation's most consequential office will contribute $1 billion, which is about half the sum they spend annually on Easter candy. Some scandal."

"When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?"

"Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce — yes, announce — that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by . . . liberals."

"Geology has joined biology in lowering mankind's self-esteem. Geology suggests how mankind's existence is contingent upon the geological consent of the planet."

"The realistic way to reduce the amount of money in politics is to reduce the amount of politics in money -- the importance of government in allocating wealth and opportunity."