Quotes About Values

The right seeks release from liberal notions of what they should feel—happy for the gay newlywed, sad at the plight of the Syrian refugee, unresentful about paying taxes. The left sees prejudice.

The Righteous Mind, for example, Jonathan Haidt

In study after study, the overwhelming majority of men aged twenty to forty-five say that having a work schedule that lets them spend more time with their family is more important than doing challenging work or even earning a high salary.

We're gonna be … I mean people like you and me … we're gonna be fifty-year-old libertines in a world full of twenty-year-old Calvinists.

a life in which conduct does not fairly well accord with principles is a silly life; and that conduct can only be made to accord with principles by means of daily examination, reflection, and resolution.

Now a regular occurrence in the eighteenth century repeats itself: the aristocracy accepts the viewpoint and standards of value of the middle class; virtue becomes a fashion in the upper class.

A child's conduct will reflect the ways of his parents.

I always knew what was most important to me. When I was growing up, nothing was more important than golf, but that's the attitude of a young person who hasn't a care in the world. Later on I figured it out. Family was first. Always. Then golf and business come after.

No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people.

Even with my divorce and with everything, I don't need money.

Money doesn't make you happy. I now have 50 million but I was just as happy when I had 48 million.

My father believed just as strongly in training our brains. After Mass on Sunday, he'd take us on a family outing: visiting another village, maybe, or seeing a play, or watching him perform with the police band. Then in the evening we had to write a report on our activities, ten pages at least. He'd hand back our papers with red ink scribbled all over them, and if we had spelled a word wrong, we had to copy it fifty times over. I loved my father and really wanted to be like him.

I stand fearlessly for small dogs, the American Flag, motherhood and the Bible. That's why people love me.

Why care for grammar as long as we are good?

I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems. Rather, the answer is a revival of our ancient commitment to God, who rules over all the peoples of the world and exalts no one over any other, and to the moral and spiritual values which were once legendary in America. We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.

The source of morality must be moral.

Moral arguments beat economic arguments every time, because—whether we are liberal or conservative—we are all moral creatures who are encoded to value compassion and fairness.

So when that woman in New Hampshire said that liberals are stupid and evil, she wasn't talking about me, but she was talking about my family. Without meaning to, she was effectively presenting me with a choice: my loved ones or my ideology. Either I admit that those with whom I disagree politically—including people I love—are stupid and evil, or I renounce my ideas and my credibility as a public figure. Love or ideology: choose.

When Ronald Reagan made his case to the American people, he didn't spend a lot of time talking about what he was fighting against. He spent most of his speech talking about who he was fighting for. This is what conservatives too often forget.

Households headed by a "conservative" give, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a "liberal.

This is a classic weaponization of values. It's not something that good or moral leaders should ever do.

Get old sharing the things you believe are most important. Excellence is always its own reward, and this is how you can be most excellent as you age.

But never once did he say that Jimmy Carter hated America, was a crook, or wanted to see the American dream die. He knew Jimmy Carter was a good man who loved his country—he just had, in Reagan's opinion, the wrong ideas for how to make America great again.

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.