Quotes from Peggy Noonan

They weren't trying to self-consciously fashion a phrase that would grab the listener. They were simply trying to capture in words the essence of the thought they wished to communicate.

Bad taste is a virus that gains strength as it spreads. People want to imitate it and outdo it.

You don't have to be old in America to say of a world you lived in: That world is gone.

history is not only made by people, it is people.

Wit penetrates; humor envelops. Wit is a function of verbal intelligence; humor is imagination operating on good nature.

write for listeners as opposed to readers.

The words and phrases you use must not only be "hearable" by the audience, they must be

a speech is shaped, ultimately, by the overwhelming desire that nothing bad happen, then nothing good will happen either. The speech will sound mealy-mouthed and nervous.

Most people aren't appreciated enough, and the bravest things we do in our lives are usually known only to ourselves. No one throws ticker tape on the man who chose to be faithful to his wife, on the lawyer who didn't take the drug money

There is a great unseen circularity in life, and we are all interacting with the people we are supposed to help and be helped by.

Word of the day- kakistocracy. From the Greek meaning government by the worst persons, least qualified or most unprincipled.

Again: What does it mean when your first act is to break the laws of your new country? What does it mean when you know you are implicitly supported in lawbreaking by that nation's ruling elite? What does it mean when you know your new country doesn't even enforce its own laws? What does it mean when you don't even have to become an American once you join America?

A great speech is literature.

Boundaries aren't all bad. That's why there are walls around mental institutions.

We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom. ...Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.

Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try. ---in Good Housekeeping

Do not be afriad! I can see that Americans are not afraid. They are not afraid of the sun, they are not afraid of the wind, they are not afraid of 'today'. They are, generally speaking, brave, good people. And so I say to you today, always be brave. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. God is with you. Do not be afraid to search for God-then you will truly be the land of the free, the home of the brave. God Bless America.

As we have become more open minded (tolerant) in society we have become more closed hearted.

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service....

I further know that if God has something special for you, you have a knowledge of it inside you, which causes you not to be satisfied with anything that isn't this thing. You're "restless" until you find it.

Everyone over 50 in America feels like a refugee. In the Old America there were a lot of bad parents. There always are, because parenting is hard. Inadequate parents could say, 'Go outside and play in the culture,' and the culture -- relatively innocent, and boring -- could be more or less trusted to bring the kids up. Grown ups now know that you can't send the kids out to play in the culture, because the culture will leave them distorted and disturbed.

But one immediate thing can be done right now, and that is: lower the temperature. Any way you can, and everybody. Just lower it.

I now know that God has a plan for each of us. The thing is to find out what it is." How? Through prayer, through keeping your mind open, and trough the circumstances of daily life and the people you meet.

What I got was not so much gifts and whishes come trues but a feeling of peace. I got peace itself, actually. And when you have peace, you can be strong; and when you are strong, you can get through what you have to get through, and not with exhaustion and frown marks and slumped shoulders but with relative happiness, and humor, and sometimes even gaiety.