Nothing good ever comes from indulging the egos of old men. 

Nothing good comes from indulging the ego of any politician, but the you-can’t-tell-me-I’ve-seen-it-all arrogance of old men is especially dangerous. 

If you want political success, it’s better to be fortunate in your enemies than in your friends. An incompetent enemy can do more for you than a devoted friend ever could. 

When Congress will not do its job, attempts by the other two branches to do Congress’s job will always create more problems than they solve. 

It is said that Marcus Aurelius had a servant whose sole talk was to whisper in his ear, “You are but a man, you will die.” Every Supreme Court justice should have a clerk whose job is to whisper “The more times you tell yourself that you’re not a legislator, the more effectively you hide from yourself your temptation to legislate.” Not as terse, but just as needful.  

No one is less trustworthy in reporting on the Supreme Court than a periodical’s “Supreme Court reporter.” 

There is no correlation between memes and votes.

People elect performers rather than genuine representatives because they think our social and economic system will continue to function without human intervention, like a solar-powered street light. 

To put the same point otherwise: The besetting sin of the people who talk politics ceaselessly is a failure to take politics seriously. 

It’s later than you think.