Aristotle deemed courage to be the first virtue, because it makes all the other possible.

To raise a child is to submit to a staggering amount of work, much of which is deeply unpleasant. It would be crazy to have children if they weren't so damned important.

Justice is the virtue we 'd rather have done unto others than practiced on ourselves.

Believe it or not, philosophy has consequences.

Virtues are the internal qualities that allow us to be our best selves and enable us to lead complete and fulfilling lives.

The modern virtues fail because they concern the outer self, the human facade, the part of ourselves the world sees most readily – while the classical virtues form an organizing framework for our inner selves… for our souls.

If you do believe in God, and your first instinct in all things must be gratitude: for creation, or love, for mercy.

One of the mitigating benefits of children is that they make a Lego habit more respectable.

Anyone can dig a ditch. There's no way to dig smarter. Or dig faster. Having a baby is like being assigned to dig a ditch. That goes all the way to the horizon.

when fertility rates began collapsing in the late 1960s, another demographic transition was occurring, the result of a fundamental restructuring: People no longer put children at the center of their lives. Instead, they put themselves there.

A man with no children can easily be lulled into a sense that time is standing still. It's not. It's marching past us, relentlessly. Having a child growing and changing before your eyes makes this unavoidably clear.