Stephen L. Carter

On the opening day of law school at Yale, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.

So many people of liberal persuasion value their own progressive opinions more than they value the people they hold those opinions about.

It is difficult to trust someone not raised to doctrine.

Being on the inside could be an addiction

In spite of his Cold War credentials, Kennedy still believed in the power of words.

They loved the sound of their own voices. No decision would be reached anytime soon.

He had been around politicians for a long time, and he was prepared for some outburst.

Jonathan had been around Washington long enough to know that no offer was exactly what it seemed.

This isn't about your reputation. Our job right now is to make sure that there to ARE future historians.

The kind of people we have in Washington only trust what they think they own.

She wasn't being methodological. She was being autobiographical.

Better to wait actively than passively.

In a crisis, time was always the enemy.

The only way to prove his willingness to wait would be to wait.

People seem to remember the sacrifices they made more than what the sacrifices were for.

She had been carried away by the need to defend herself.

The victors always think they are righteous. But then, they always seem to start a mighty unrighteous squabbling over the spoils.

Coming from a business family, she shied away from abstractions.