A lot of lip service gets paid to being honest, but no one really wants to hear it unless what’s being said is the party line.

I don’t have a ‘side’—I’m responsible for what I say and nothing else.

The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding....

I had no knowledge of divine help, and all the world lost faith in gradual progress.

Burke’s admonition–“The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations”–never seems to have occurred to...

The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and...

For too long, our controversies seem to boil down to conservatives and liberals (or, if you prefer, traditionalists and progressives) talking past each other for the benefit of stirring up their loyalists, as partisans do...

There’s no evidence from decades of Pew Research surveys that public opinion, in the aggregate, is more extreme now than in the past. But what has changed — and pretty dramatically — is the growing...

Memo to extreme partisans: If you can’t bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

In the tired hand of a dying man, Theodore Senior had written: “The ‘Machine politicians’ have shown their colors… I feel sorry for the country however as it shows the power of partisan politicians who...