Bret Stephens Quotes

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Bret Stephens

Profession : Journalist

Birth : November 21, 1973

Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a large dose of penance. What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

Bret Stephens

I don't think it is impossible to make the case to sensible Americans that far greater restrictions on their so-called gun rights is imperative for public safety. It is an argument we can win.

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 most celebrated, was his refusal to accept an early release from his captors.

Bret Stephens

I routinely interview college students, mostly from top schools, and I notice that their brains are like old maps, with lots of blank spaces for the uncharted terrain. It's not that they lack for motivation or IQ. It's that they can't connect the dots when they don't know where the dots are in the first place.

Bret Stephens

Voter fraud is a reality in American elections, but it is typical of the candidate to confuse anecdote with data and turn allegation into conspiracy.

Bret Stephens

Please spare us the self-pity about how tough it is to look for a job while living with your parents.

Bret Stephens

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

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

In every generation, there's a strong tendency for everyone to think like everyone else.

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 does matter, and Trump's shortcomings prove it daily.

Bret Stephens

The American tradition rests on pillars of self-questioning, self-actualization, and disagreement.

Bret Stephens

An abusive cop does not equal a bigoted police department.

Bret Stephens

Yes, Obama took over two wars from Bush - just as President Richard Nixon inherited Vietnam from President Lyndon Johnson and President Dwight Eisenhower inherited Korea from President Harry Truman. But at least the war in Iraq was all but won by 2009, thanks largely to the very surge Obama had opposed as a senator.

Bret Stephens

Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state. She was on the wrong side of some of the administration's biggest internal policy fights. She had a tendency to flip-flop when it came to the president's core priorities, and her political misjudgment more than once cost Mr. Bush dearly.

Bret Stephens

There are necessary taboos and essential decencies in every morally healthy society.

Bret Stephens

Free trade was once a Republican conviction.

Bret Stephens

I grew up in Mexico City at a time when the country was a repressive one-party dictatorship almost wholly dependent on oil revenues.

Bret Stephens

Since the end of World War II, U.S. presidents of both parties have recognized that foreign and domestic policy do not have to be pursued at the expense of each other.

Bret Stephens

The people we need to hear from most are the ones who make themselves heard least - except, of course, on Election Day.

Bret Stephens

The best scientific evidence suggests temperatures are rising, and the best scientific evidence suggests man-made anthropogenic carbon emissions have some substantial thing to do with that. However, does that mean the trend will continue forever? We don't know.

Bret Stephens