“Robert Bork, at opening of Judiciary hearings:How should a judge go about finding the law? The only legitimate way, in my opinion, is by attempting to discern what those who made the law intended...As I wrote in an opinion for our court, the judge's responsibility "is to discern how the framers' values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply in the world we know.If a judge abandons intentions as his guide, there is no law available to him, and he begins to legislate a social agenda for the American people. That goes well beyond his powers..”

“the Democratic Party had failed (in 1983) 'to remember waht got us this far and how we got here -- moral indignation, decent instincts, a sense of shared sacrifice and mutual responsibility, and a set of national priorities that emphasized what we had in common.. The Party that was the engine of the national interest -- molding our pluralistic interest into a compelling new social contract that served the nation well for fifty years -- became perceived as little more than the broker of narrow special interests. Instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans first, Democrats second, and members of interest groups third, we have begun to think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.. We have let our opponents set the agenda and define what is at stake.p. 140”

“The conservatives could sneer about "social engineering" if they wanted, but I thought that most people believed as I did that government should embody our best hopes and lend a hand to people who were struggling.”

“We must have public officials who will stand up and tell the people exactly what they think... Our failure in recent years has not been the failure of the people to meet the challenges placed before them, but rather the failure of both our great political parties to place those challenges honestly and courageously before the people, and to trust the willingness of the people to do the things that really need to be done.”

“We all know - or at least we are told continuously - that we are a divided people. And we know there's a degree of truth in it. We have too often allowed our differences to prevail among us. We have too often allowed ambitious men to play off those differences for political gain. We have too often retreated behind our differences when no one really tried to lead us beyond them.”

“quoting from Neil Kinnock, running against Thatcher in 1987:Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Is it because all our predecessors were thick? Did they lack talent? Those people who could sing, and play, and recite, and write poetry, those people who could make wonderful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn't they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak? Those women who could survive eleven childbearings? Were they weak? Anybody really think that they didn't get what we have because they didn't have the talent, or the strength, or the endurance, or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform on which they could stand.”

“But all our differences hardly measure up to the values we all hold in common... ”