56 Quotes by Stephen L. Carter

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

In our sensible zeal to keep religion from dominating our politics, we have created a political and legal culture that presses the religiously faithful to be other than themselves, to act publicly, and sometimes privately as well, as though their faith does not matter to them.

One sees a trend in our political and legal cultures toward treating religious beliefs as arbitrary and unimportant, a trend supported by a rhetoric that implies that there is something wrong with religious devotion.

Richard John Neuhaus, in his well-known book The Naked Public Square, tells us that in America, the public square has become openly hostile to religion.

True love is not the helpless desire to possess the cherished object of one’s fervent affection; true love is the disciplined generosity we require of ourselves for the sake of another when we would rather be selfish; that, at least, is how I have taught myself to love my wife.

We live today in a world in which nobody believes choices should have consequences. But may I tell you the great secret that our culture seeks to deny? You cannot escape the consequences of your choices. Time runs in only one direction.

Teasing out the way the world might look through another’s eyes is what makes the creative process so fascinating and enjoyable.

In contemporary American culture, the religions are more and more treated as just passing beliefs – almost as fads – rather than as the fundaments upon which the devout build their lives.

When you shoot someone who is fleeing, it’s not self-defense. It’s an execution.