Quotes from Michael Novak
Our moral and cultural traditions have not kept pace with our economic possibilities. We try to match new demands with a spiritual life not designed for them.
— Michael Novak
You're a sovereign as a citizen. If you're not involved in your government, you're not doing your job. In the long run that's very bad for the Republic.
— Michael Novak
The Lord God, the creator of Judaism and the God of Judaism and Christianity, empowered our minds and gave us the ability to question.
— Michael Novak
Jews do not have to be Christians. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, but too utopian, too hopeful, too unrealistic a turn.
— Michael Novak
A man is too insignificant to be preoccupied with his failures. All of the energy he has is required for attending to the loneliness, the pain, the needs of others.
— Michael Novak
Practically every movie that shows the pope or even a bishop as a character, and in much of western literature of the last 300 or 400 years, these are portrayed as awful figures.
— Michael Novak
A friend asks if I know the difference between a saint and a martyr: A saint is someone who radiates goodness and bears no faults. A martyr is someone who lives with a saint.
— Michael Novak
Love is a willingness to sacrifice.
— Michael Novak
To know oneself is to disbelieve utopia.
— Michael Novak
Love is not a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice.
— Michael Novak
Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here, even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society.
— Michael Novak
To go into a competition and not strive to win is to be a dishonest competitor.
— Michael Novak