Bret Stephens

“No adviser to a president is going to get his way all of the time, but at a minimum, that adviser should be able to defend the tilt of an administration's policy as if it were his own. If not, he should make room for those who can.”

“Down with politics and the art of the possible; up with pronouncements and the allure of the prophetic: It's the way of demagogues everywhere.”

“Before the word 'resignation' became a euphemism for being fired, it connoted a sense of public integrity and personal honor.”

“I am sorry that Mr. Cheney, and every other supporter of enhanced interrogation techniques, has to defend the practices as if they were torture. They are not.”

“The American birthright belongs, potentially, to everyone. This is unprecedented. Other countries accept migrants on the basis of economic necessity or as a humanitarian gesture. Only in America is it the direct consequence of our foundational ideals.”

“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.”

“Demanding abrupt and expensive changes in public policy raises fair questions about ideological intentions.”

“I wear two hats at the 'Wall Street Journal': one as a columnist, the other as the editor responsible for our editorial pages in Asia and Europe.”

“My office-hour reading is fairly ad hoc: I generally read whatever seems relevant to what I'm editing, writing, or thinking about writing.”

“The intelligent defense of free speech should not rest on the notion that we must tolerate every form of speech, no matter how offensive. It's that we should lean toward greater tolerance for speech we dislike, and reserve our harshest penalties only for the worst offenders.”

“The most interesting conversation is not about why Donald Trump lies. Many public figures lie, and he's only a severe example of a common type. The interesting conversation concerns how we come to accept those lies.”

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

“I'm simply here to say guns should be owned by responsible people, and there should be high tests and a high bar to prove your responsibility.”

“I don't read 'Vanity Fair,' whose millionaire-fashionista-liberal shtick I find repellent.”

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

“Humanitarianism is commendable, but not when you're demanding that others share the burdens and expense.”

“We elected Donald J. Trump to keep us jittery and entertained. He's delivered.”

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

“The United States survives so long as at least one of its major parties is politically and intellectually healthy. I don't think the Republican Party, or I should say the Republican Party as the vehicle for modern American conservative ideas, survives with Donald Trump.”

“Free trade was once a Republican conviction.”