Quotes from Richard Cohen

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

I don't know if history will adjudge Barack Obama a great president, but he has been a necessary one.

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

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.

We are a segmented society, living in our individual bubbles.

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.

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.

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.

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

There is only so much chaos a nation can stand.

Trump critics such as myself have been accused of living in a bubble. On the contrary, it is Trump's supporters in the 1 percent who breathed their own fumes.

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.

The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.

Trump's overriding accomplishment is plain: The Republican Party can no longer be shamed.

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.

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

It's all right with me if Roman Polanski is freed by the Swiss authorities who have detained him at the request of the United States - if first I get a chance to bust him one in the mouth.

The book is warm. The book is handy. The book is handsome to the eye. The book occupies the shelf of the owner and is a reflection of him or her or, actually, me. The book is always there, to be reached for, to be thumbed and, too often I admit, to wonder about: Why did I buy this?

He either fears his fate too much / Or his deserts are small / That puts it not unto the touch / To win or lose it all.

In 1830, the writer Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve (1804–69) fought one of the owners of Le Globe in heavy rain; Saint-Beuve held an umbrella throughout the duel, claiming that he did not mind dying but he would not get wet.

He [Edward Snowden] has been careful with his info, doling it out to responsible news organizations — The Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, etc. — and not tossing it up in the air, WikiLeaks style, and echoing the silly mantra "Information wants to be free." (No. Information, like most of us, wants a home in the Hamptons.)" – Richard Cohen, Washington Post (10/22/2013)

Divinity students always fought in these peaked caps, as a scar would terminate their careers.

The symbolism of the action has been replaced by the reality of the touch.

Two poets, Nikolai Gumilyov and Maximilian Voloshin, fought a duel over a non-existent woman.