Doing good isn't [that] hard. It's just doing a lot of good that is very hard. If your aims are modest, you can accomplish an awful lot. When your aims become elevated beyond a reasonable level, you not only don't accomplish much, you can cause a great deal of damage.

A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society.

[A neoconservative is] a liberal who has been mugged by reality. A neoliberal is a liberal who got mugged by reality but has not pressed charges.

People need religion. It's a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.

The major political event of the twentieth century is the death of socialism.

It was a new kind of class war — the people as citizens versus the politicians and their clients in the public sector.

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions — it only guarantees equality of opportunity.