Quotes by Bret Stephens

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

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?

Free trade was once a Republican conviction.

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.

Censoriously asserting one's moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts.

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.

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.

Nearly everyone I know seems to have a well-developed theory as to why this country is past redemption, or almost, and every theory seems almost right.

What too many of Mr. Trump's supporters want is an American strongman, a president who will make the proverbial trains run on time.

This is the standard line of the Trump side of the party, that us who oppose him are just a bunch of elites who live in the Acela corridor in this bubble of unimaginable wealth. I wish I had been born into an extremely wealthy New York real estate family and been given multimillion dollar loans to get my start in life.