Bret Stephens

Generosity is a virtue, but unlimited generosity is a fast route to bankruptcy.

— Bret Stephens

My father's political heroes were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

— Bret Stephens

I almost never listen to radio or watch political talk shows, especially if I happen to be on them.

— Bret Stephens

The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.

— Bret Stephens

Successful nations make a point of trying to learn from their neighbors. The Arab world has been taught over generations only to…

— Bret Stephens

Down with politics and the art of the possible; up with pronouncements and the allure of the prophetic: It's the way of…

— Bret Stephens

For the anti-Semite, the problems of the world can invariably be ascribed to the Jews; for the Communist, to the capitalists.

— Bret Stephens

Censoriously asserting one's moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts.

— Bret Stephens

In the scale of American blunders - from the Dred Scott decision to the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s to the tragedy…

— Bret Stephens

Anyone who has been the victim of the social-media furies knows just how distorting and dishonest those furies can be.

— Bret Stephens

There was a time when the conservative movement was led by the likes of Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol and Bob Bartley,…

— Bret Stephens

Countries we love will inevitably do things we don't like or fail to understand. The same goes for people.

— Bret Stephens

Among the events of John McCain's five-and-a-half years of imprisonment and torture in North Vietnam, probably the most heroic, and surely the…

— Bret Stephens

Ignore Trump's tweets. Yes, it's unrealistic. But we would all be better off if the media reported them more rarely, reacted to…

— Bret Stephens

The criterion for racism is either objective or it's meaningless: If liberals get to decide for themselves who is or isn't a…

— Bret Stephens

If the Republican party essentially becomes the white party, it is going to be the death of it, not only for demographic…

— Bret Stephens

Do I think police chiefs, many of which are African-American or Hispanic, wake up and say, 'Let's systemically oppress African-American communities?' No,…

— Bret Stephens

No adviser to a president is going to get his way all of the time, but at a minimum, that adviser should…

— Bret Stephens

It's easy to deprecate some of the puffery and jingoism that often go with affirmations of 'American greatness.' It's also easy to…

— Bret Stephens

Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a…

— Bret Stephens

When those of us in the words-making world use the term 'overregulation,' we are mostly putting a name to a concept we…

— Bret Stephens

I have been writing about Hillary Clinton, I just actually looked this up, since 1998 when she was busy standing by when…

— Bret Stephens

We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets…

— Bret Stephens

Socialism may have failed as an economic theory, but global warming alarmism, with its dire warnings about the consequences of industry and…

— Bret Stephens

The more Mr. Trump traduces the old established lines of decency, the more he affirms his supporters' most shameless ideological instincts.

— Bret Stephens

I am sorry that Mr. Cheney, and every other supporter of enhanced interrogation techniques, has to defend the practices as if they…

— Bret Stephens

Of course ABC and its parent company Disney were right to cancel the sitcom 'Roseanne' after its eponymous star, Roseanne Barr, wrote…

— Bret Stephens

'Character Doesn't Count' has become a de facto G.O.P. motto. 'Virtue Doesn't Matter' might be another. But character does count, and virtue…

— Bret Stephens

Donald Trump's more sophisticated defenders have long since mastered the art of pretending that the only thing that matters with his presidency…

— Bret Stephens

Perhaps the reason Trump voters are so frequently the subject of caricature is that they so frequently conform to type.

— Bret Stephens

I think that for the United States, Hillary Clinton, as awful as I find her, is a survivable event. I'm not so…

— Bret Stephens

I'm simply here to say guns should be owned by responsible people, and there should be high tests and a high bar…

— Bret Stephens

I don't think the Republican Party, or I should say the Republican Party as the vehicle for modern American conservative ideas, survives…

— Bret Stephens

The Arab world's problems are a problem of the Arab mind, and the name for that problem is anti-Semitism.

— Bret Stephens

I think a Donald Trump presidency sets up an Elizabeth Warren ascendancy. And it not Elizabeth Warren, someone of her ilk. And…

— Bret Stephens

Nearly everyone I know seems to have a well-developed theory as to why this country is past redemption, or almost, and every…

— Bret Stephens

Perhaps if there were less certitude about our climate future, more Americans would be interested in having a reasoned conversation about it.

— Bret Stephens

I don't see the point of belonging to a party on the increasingly dubious assumption that it's slightly less bad than the…

— Bret Stephens

I wear two hats at the 'Wall Street Journal': one as a columnist, the other as the editor responsible for our editorial…

— Bret Stephens

If a public figure tells a whopping lie once in his life, it'll haunt him into his grave. If he lies morning,…

— Bret Stephens