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In the American constitutional system of three different branches, conflict - and I mean that peaceful, vigorous debate - it's a feature of our system, not a bug. We need less all-or - winner-take-all politics.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
I think I'm one of five people in the Senate who's never been a politician before. And now that I am a politician, what I find weird about it is that I respect myself less.
Benjamin E. Sasse
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Our goal is for our kids to be intentional about everything they do --- to reject passivity and mindless consumption and to embrace an ethos of action, of productivity, of meaningful work, of genuinely lifelong learning.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
As Putnam demonstrates, poorer, less-educated parents tend to believe that their primary task is getting their children to obey, as opposed to better-educated parents, who emphasize helping their children understand why they ought to obey a given rule. Reading, reasoning, and problem-solving with their parents help children develop the higher-order skills that make them better equipped to face the challenges of a fluid, complex world.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
In the midst of extraordinary prosperity, we’re also living through a crisis. Our communities are collapsing, and people are feeling more isolated, adrift, and purposeless than ever before.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
When one half of the nation demonizes the other half, tendrils of resentment reach out and strangle whatever charitable impulses remain in us.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
...there is almost nothing more important we can do for our young than convince them that production is more satisfying than consumption.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
We're not at war with all Muslims, we're at war with a subset of Islam that believes in killing in the name of religion, as jihadis do.
Benjamin E. Sasse
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Reverend King knew that the path to success could not be zero-sum—our side wins and your side loses.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
I didn't go to Harvard because I thought they had good academics. I went because they had crappy enough sports so they'd let me play.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
As The Atlantic’s Julie Beck has written, we’re building “pillow forts” of comfortable information around us and making it more and more difficult for anything we don’t want to hear to penetrate.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
It's not natural to have to suffer when we work. We're made to be productive, and yet the world we live in, there's a whole bunch of suffering. And what they need to understand as 10-year-olds, so that when they're 15 and slightly less protected, and when they're 20 and they're moving into a truly semi-independent state, they need to have experienced that memory of persevering and having gotten through hardship.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
And the media plays into his hand, every single time. By April 1, 2016, with a month still to go in the Republican primaries, Donald Trump had received the equivalent of $2 billion in free television coverage. All sixteen of his GOP opponents, by comparison, had received $1.2 billion combined. By the day of the November general election, Trump had earned just under $5 billion in free media—$1.75 billion more than Hillary Clinton.
Benjamin E. Sasse -
We would never have been crazy enough, insulated enough, bubble-wrapped enough, to think that it was impossible to sleep without it—especially at seventy-two degrees.
Benjamin E. Sasse