Rigor pushed too far is sure to miss its aim, however good, as the bow snaps that is bent too stiffly.
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
I can think of no better way of redeeming this tragic world today than love and laughter. Too many of the young have forgotten how to laugh, and too many of the elders have forgotten how to love. Would not our lives be lightened if only we could all learn to laugh more easily at ourselves and to love one another?
There is no academic virtue in playing mediocre football and no academic vice in winning a game that by all odds one should lose. . . There has indeed been a surrender at Notre Dame, but it is a surrender to excellence on all fronts, and in this we hope to rise above ourselves with the help of God.
My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are cheap; you make them because they're right.
A decade after an average athlete graduates, everyone will have forgotten when and where he played. But every time he speaks, everyone will know whether he was educated.
I believe that behind every closed door there is an open space.
Of course I'd sometimes have characters from downstate living upstate, but it took a while for me to start writing about where I grew up.
[Americans] think that choice, as seen through the American lens, best fulfills an innate and universal desire for choice in all humans. Unfortunately, these beliefs are based on assumptions that don't always hold true in many countries, in many cultures.
Look at everything through the lens of eternity. If you will do this, life will take on a different perspective.