Stephen L. Carter

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

“Size and elaboration were often mistaken for importance.”

“Our sense of history has grown dangerously thin, and our sense of proportion with it.”

“Being on the inside could be an addiction”

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

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

“To Tom, the march of technology was equivalent to the march of civilization.”

“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.”

“It is difficult to trust someone not raised to doctrine.”

“He was vain and tended to surround himself with intellectual and moral pygmies.”

“He was the sort of man who only wanted to be told what he already assumed was true.”

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

“He seemed to believe that indignation was a sufficient guardian.”

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