George Stephanopoulos Quotes

My hope is that we would begin to have a dialogue in this country about the importance of civility. We can have strong differences, but it does seem to me that most of the country believes it's gone to critical mass in what I would call the professional class across the political spectrum - left and right.

I will always remember and we must all remember that Democrats are our political rivals, not our enemies, and they deserve our respect.

I think one of the things that we are facing right now is that we've stopped listening to each other in our politics.

There is too much at stake for us to surrender to the politics of polarization.

I think America is going to have to think through whether it wants to uplift the political dialogue or advance an approach that divides and, frankly, can lead to violence.

Gratitude is not an active sentiment in politics.

Democracy does not have to be a blood sport …

How to Turn Democrats & Republicans Into Americans

I think these kinds of public disputes are bad for our people.

Donald Trump:President of the Divided States of America

Some of the United States' enemies now assume, perhaps rightly, that we hate each other so much that we'd sooner collaborate with them than do the difficult work of listening to each other. It doesn't need to be this way - but national recovery won't come from Washington. It has to start with you.

A thing that really troubles me about a more polarized society is that you stop having a sense of society and citizenship.

The language has changed. When I grew up and watched the campaigns of John Kennedy, even with Richard Nixon, there was a lot higher level of civility. Now we describe a disagreement as an attack.

Elections should highlight principled disagreements, but they must not obscure our capacity to cooperate for the common good.

We live in a representative democracy, characterized by free and fair elections and peaceful transfers of power. After most elections, roughly half of Americans are thrilled with the results; the other half are profoundly disappointed.

I'm very much a nostalgic optimist.

I really rebel against this idea that politics has to be a place full of ego and where you're constantly focused on scoring hits against each one another. Yes, we need a robust democracy, but you can be strong, and you can be kind.

The one thing that is distinctive about America historically has been the fact that we are all able to engage in public discourse without the political becoming personal.

In a healthy, normal society, people can disagree with one another, even have diametrically opposing views, and this does not at all mean that they must hate one another. The Polish authorities, however, have made the division of Poles their primary task.

Bipartisanship and decency are thrown to the waste side because people want their party to win so badly.

For a while under Donald Trump, it was possible to believe that we could go back to a more functional, less rancorous time. This desire was expressed most eloquently at John McCain's funeral services.

We need to take our passion and effect real change at the local, state, and federal levels, to help elect progressive leaders, and to stem the tide of division, fear and scapegoating.

Partisanship may be King in Washington - but the rest of us don't have to pay tribute.

I'm asking the American people to rise above the noise and the clutter of our broken politics.

I don't mind the debates, they're good for America, but we shouldn't be out there attacking each other all the time.