Unfortunately, in today's world we have to be reminded that the power of an oath derives from the fact that in it we ask God to bear witness to the promises we make with the implicit expectation that He will hold us accountable for the manner in which we honor them.

One camp accepts the Court's limits on contributions but urges the reinstatement of spending caps - even if this requires a constitutional amendment subjecting political speech, if not pornography, to government regulation.

Given the difficulty of resisting such temptations over the longer run, a proper concern for the welfare of congressional souls may well be the ultimate argument in favor of term limitations.

In rendering its decision in our case, the Supreme Court equated money with speech because these days it takes the first to make yourself heard.

The Court made an exception, however, in the case of candidates contributing to their own campaigns because of the rather reasonable presumption that a candidate is incapable of corrupting himself.

If enough people openly engage in conduct once considered reprehensible, we rewrite the rule book and assume that God, as a good democrat, will go along.

The kind of corruption the media talk about, the kind the Supreme Court was concerned about, involves the putative sale of votes in exchange for campaign contributions.

Moreover, we are showing a dismaying tendency to recast God in Man's image.

Under the circumstances, may I suggest another means of encouraging probity in elective office. I refer to term limitations, which can serve ends beyond that of saving congressional souls.

Once it becomes impossible for members of Congress to make a career of legislative service, the temptation to bend a vote for whatever reason may yield to the better angels of their nature.

As a consequence, the Court ruled that the limits on campaign spending violated the First Amendment, but it accepted the $1,000 limit on individual contributions on the ground that the need to avoid the appearance of corruption justified this limited constraint on speech.

In the last analysis, of course, an oath will encourage fidelity in office only to the degree that officeholders continue to believe that they cannot escape ultimate accountability for a breach of faith.

I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing.

This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle.

They may then be willing to cast principled votes based on an educated understanding of the public interest in the face of polls suggesting that the public itself may have quite a different understanding of where its interest lies.

Unfortunately, the media, which are not at all reluctant to act in their own self-interest, have succeeded in equating reform in the public mind with further restrictions on just about everyone else's freedom of political speech.

I am persuaded that in the case of elected officials, the overwhelming temptation is to conclude that it is more important for your constituents that you be reelected than that you deal honestly with them.

What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.

What distinguishes the campaign finance issue from just about every other one being debated these days is that the two sides do not divide along conventional liberal/ conservative lines.

It would seem, therefore, that this constitutional safeguard may no longer serve its original purpose, especially when, as we learned last year, some acts of perjury may now be acceptable - in this world, at least, if not the next.

Unfortunately, in today's world we have to be reminded that the power of an oath derives from the fact that in it we ask God to bear witness to the promises we make with the implicit expectation that He will hold us accountable for the manner in which we honor them.

Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it.

Until the last great war, a general expectation of material improvement was an idea peculiar to Western man. Now war and its aftermath have made economic and social progress a political imperative in every quarter of the globe.

In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.

But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.

I was always surrounded by expectation from the very first race I ran as a 5-year-old.

I also want to draw attention to the responsibilities that people have to live up to their election promises and to live up to the votes that were cast by the people of Wales, in the General Election, in the expectation that we would deliver this promise.

Where is the expectation of privacy in the commission of a crime?

I believe that this is not only the view of the people on both sides of the Strait. It is also the common expectation of the US, Japan and the international community.

We will always tend to fulfill our own expectation of ourselves.

A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.

There is no greater challenge than to have someone relying upon you; no greater satisfaction than to vindicate his expectation.

A desert is a place without expectation.

Life is largely a matter of expectation.

An expectation is a future object, recognised as belonging to me.

A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.

Kids will reach whatever expectation you set for them.

Death, after all, is the common expectation from birth. Neither heroes nor cowards can escape it.

I had no expectation that the Prince would offer me the unprecedented and unfettered access to the original and entirely untapped sources on which this biography is based.

Expectation is the root of all heartache.

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

To compete in a global economy, our students must continue their education beyond high school. To make this expectation a reality, we must give students the tools they need to succeed, including the opportunity to take a college entrance exam.

I think ultimately if you have a very high expectation of your audience and you know exactly what it is you're trying to express through the medium of film, there will always be an audience for you.

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.

Our top priority is our troops, who are making the extraordinary effort to fulfill the mission they have been given. Democrats will work with this Administration to better define that mission and a realistic expectation of success in Iraq.