Trust is the lubricant of human relationships. Where there is high trust among and between people, economic activity flourishes and there are opportunities for all.

there's goodness and purpose and reason out there. Believe it, embrace it, trust it. Life will always be hard, but if we do our best, if we persist, we can make a difference---and good will win out over evil, love will conquer hate...

On the other hand, it seemed to be working. For Samantha, anyway. And in comparison, my own relationship with Bernard was sorely lacking. Not only in sex, but in the simple fact that I still wasn't sure I was ever going to see him again. I guess the best thing about living with a guy is that you know you're going to see him again. I mean, he has to come home at some point, right?

There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.

A defeatist attitude kills almost as many marriages as do affairs.

Everyone who enters the marriage relationship will come to a point where the marriage starts to rub somewhat adversely. It is for these times that the promise is made. Anticipating struggle, God has ordained a remedy, holding us to our word of commitment. In this struggle we become nobler people.

If you fail to cherish your wife in the difficult times, the damage done by those difficulties will be twice as bad and take three times as long to heal.

Yes, they think that. They regard the intention of loyalty to a partnership for mutual help, for the preservation of chastity, and for the transmission of life, as something lower than a storm of emotion.

The same conclusion could be made about marriage. Every marriage has sorrows. Every marriage has trials. There isn't a shared bedroom in this country where tension doesn't occasionally or perhaps frequently lift its snarling head. Many a pillow has been a solemn receptacle for soul-felt tears, cried late at night or even all throughout the day. We don't get to choose which sorrows or trials we are called to bear, only that we must endure them.

I think we need the same attitude with our marriage. All of us experience certain things about our spouses that may be difficult for us to accept.

2 Thessalonians 3:5: "May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance.

For though I tried to move his arm— unlock his bridegroom clasp—yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain.