Top 98 Quotes & Sayings by Richard Cohen - Page 2

The term 'disrupter' has become an accolade, like first-responder or something.

I served in the Army. I worked at blue-collar jobs. I washed dishes and bused tables.

I reveled in political science and history of all kinds, and I felt for a long time that I had discovered all the secrets of life in psychology, although its Freudian variety left me cold. The id never made much sense to me.

Myths have a certain staying power because, really, they are aspirational - not always who we are, but always who we want to be. We see ourselves as good and generous. We believe we are a virtuous nation.

The more Scott Walker campaigns, the more he proves he is not intellectually fit for the office he's seeking. He asserts innocent ignorance on matters he should by now know something about - a way of masking his apparent bigotry.

My father was raised in an orphanage, and my mother was an immigrant from Poland whose first childhood memory was of hunger. Somehow, despite all of that, I am called a member of the 'elite.' If so, I damned well earned it.

The fact is that the United States does not need Israel. Our special relationship was not forged, as it was with Great Britain, in two world wars, not to mention a common language and, in significant respects, culture. It is based on warmth, emotion, shared values - and, not to be dismissed, a potent domestic lobby.

Israel may be beloved, but for American security, it is not essential.

Being an American is life-threatening. For various reasons, men and women here don't live as long as men and women in about two dozen other countries, including the ones we defeated in World War II - Japan, Germany and Italy.

In power politics, it's usually not enough to be liked. A nation has to be considered essential.

Raising money, like sausage-making, ain't pretty to see, and it would be just criminally naive to rely on the big hearts of big donors.

Iran may or may not be the existential threat to Israel that Netanyahu insists it is. But a lessening of U.S. support for Israel certainly would be. With an indifferent America, Israel would become a lonely, frightening place.

I came of age when jobs were plentiful and college not exorbitantly expensive. I graduated with debt, but it was manageable, and I set off to do something I loved - journalism.

Much worse than the unavoidable inefficiencies of large government is the failure to fund the government we need.

Among the things I know is that Trump voters were played for suckers.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, he cares. He cares about things I don't, and he has some awful ideas, and he is an amoral man in so many ways. But, in contrast to Obama, his emotions are no mystery.

Republicans and others who are in anguish over the possibility of socialized medicine ought to have to explain their ideology to a mother with a sick newborn. They ought to have to explain how this nation can debate health care and not mention how abysmal ours is.

Hillary Clinton looms over the Democratic Party like Evita from her balcony.

I agree that sometimes Michelle Obama can come across as angry - and anger is discomforting. We venerate that empty word, closure, wanting to seal off the pain of the past and refusing it admittance to the chirpy present. This, of course, is nonsense.

A presidential candidate needs a slogan.

As a kid, I was a paperboy, and the walls of the place where we picked up our papers were plastered with pictures of former paperboys - some sports figures, some presidents, some military officers.

My heroes are not necessarily people of great ability but ones who did what I think I could not.

I have written about cultural dislocation, and I understand the corrosive effect of diminished expectations.

I have come to the conclusion that Ben Carson is a bit nuts. I say that not because I disagree with him politically, but because he doesn't seem to know what the truth is.

There is precious little that's charitable about the world of charity.

As a presidential candidate, Trump seems heaven-sent just to make fools out of Republicans.

I never went to college to make money.

I am glad to see the Confederate battle flag gone from a place of honor at the South Carolina state capitol.

I value my education, but I cannot put a value on it. I know it has been worth some money to me - I don't think 'The Post' would have hired me if I had lacked a degree - but I probably could have earned about the same if I had stayed in the insurance business, where I worked while going to college at night.

Large government is inevitably inefficient, but so, too, is large private enterprise.

Lots of men have failed as presidents, as Trump surely will, but few fail so dismally as role models. He's a boy's idea of a man. He's a man's idea of a boy.

Something about the Clintons sets the GOP to howling at the moon.

Churchill had a marvelous way with words, and greatness accompanied him like a shadow, but in certain ways, he was a 19th-century man wandering, confounded, in the 20th.

Most men, I think, wonder about their courage. How would they act in combat? Under torture?

Private enterprise cannot rebuild the nation's infrastructure or keep our research institutions vibrant. Government must do what only it can do.

Travelgate eventually faded, and the nation somehow survived - American exceptionalism at work again.

Hillary Clinton may have lied about her emails, but Donald Trump lies about everything.

Sometimes I think that Rush Limbaugh is the dumbest man in America. This happens whenever I take him at face value and forget that he is basically an entertainer with contempt for his audience. He will tell them anything.