Lee Atwater Quotes

How Americans restore trust may be an existential question for their country, then, but it's ultimately a practical one: What U.S. society needs to answer it in the coming years aren't lamentations but practical measures, especially among the emerging generations that will define America's future.

The church, inserted and active in human society and in history, does not exist in order to exercise political power or to govern the society.

Our Nation is in great need of young men and women of character to lead in every arena of our society.

We need leadership that can elevate religion and morality to their position of paramount importance and thus eliminate growing selfishness, immorality and materialism.

In the community, in the African-American community, one person ought to say something, and that is the minister. The minister is paid by the people. He doesn't work for a big company. He doesn't represent a particular special interest.

I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership in the world, to explore, to seek knowledge.

I'm interested in what it means to be an American. I'm interested in what it means to live in America. I'm interested in the kind of country that we live in and leave our kids. I'm interested in trying to define what that country is.

Everyone in society should be a role model, not only for their own self-respect, but for respect from others.

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

To me, the real 'state of the union' is found in how Americans react to current events.

We need to be clear when we venerate entrepreneurs what we are venerating. They are not moral leaders. If they were moral leaders, they wouldn't be great businessmen.

Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.

Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics, it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar.

One needs to know what the hierarchy of values are from which one takes inspiration, and in a democratic society this is the subject of continuous democratic debate.

America somehow thinks that leadership relates to governance, and it certainly does. But society is much bigger than governance, and some of the truly great leadership of our society is outside the governance arena.

It is good for society to have this introspection.

I am considering two things on a daily basis: what is right to do and what is wrong to do in my role as President of my people. According to my conscience, I am trying to abide by the right. My vision is peace. My vision is prosperity.

America is a place where we all come together. It is a place of consensus.

In Plains, I saw Jimmy Carter as he really is - a nice, decent man... in terms of compassionate contribution to society, he certainly has proven to be our best past president.

A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!

In the United States, nobody needs to remind people of their own role or their own power in creating the future they want to see. Perhaps it is something that is almost written into your cultural DNA: a desire to answer your Founding Fathers' call to create a 'more perfect union.'

It taught me that Clinton's instinct to make this about your life as a citizen, rather than his as a human being, was the right answer to these things.

We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.

No, we are not the master of the state, said King. We are not the servant of the state. We are the conscience of the state. The churches or the religious community should be, I think, the conscience of the state. We're not just service providers.