Sloth

I think Lincoln did what he thought was right, even though it meant losing half the country. 

I think you don't do what you think is right if it means losing Michigan's electoral votes.

Sloth is one of the 7 Capital Sins

It is the most difficult sin to define, and to credit as sin, since it refers to a peculiar jumble of notions, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical states.

One definition that may be given to sloth is habitual disinclination to exertion.

STANLEY [VO]

It can't be easy being you.

BARTLET

I told you...

STANLEY

I don't mean the job. I meant, uh, you know, being inside your head.

BARTLET

What's wrong with my head?

STANLEY

I don't know.

BARTLET

Of course not. 

That would be three hundred and eighty-five dollars an hour.

STANLEY

They keep moving the goalpost on you, don't they? 

Get A's, good college, Latin honours.

Get into the London School of Economics. 

Get a good teaching job. 

Ivy League school, tenure. 

Now you gotta publish, now you gotta go to Stockholm.

BARTLET

It's not good for a person to keep setting goals?

STANLEY

It probably is, but it's tricky for somebody who's still trying to get his

father to stop hitting him.

BARTLET

Well, I'm told that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.

STANLEY

Yeah, but that's most men. 

That's not you. 

That's the other people, the ones who feel stress. 

You're destined for something else.

BARTLET

I have abilities.

STANLEY

And now you have an opportunity to use them.

BARTLET

I think I have.

STANLEY

That room I passed down the hall, on the left, it's got a name, right?

BARTLET

I think you're talking about the Lincoln Bedroom.

STANLEY

Right. 

This is a hell of a curve you get graded on now.

Lincoln freed the slaves and won the Civil War. 

"Thank you. Next! 

And what will you be singing for us today, Mr. Bartlet?"

"Well, we've had six straight quarters of economic growth..."

BARTLET

That's not easy.

STANLEY

Okay.

BARTLET

It's not easy.

STANLEY

I believe you.

BARTLET

I think I've made tough choices.

STANLEY

I think Lincoln did what he thought was right, even though it meant losing half the country. 

I think you don't do what you think is right if it means losing Michigan's electoral votes.

BARTLET

You don't know anything.

STANLEY

I'll be the first to admit that.

BARTLET

I'm not trying to get my father to like me.

STANLEY

Good. 

'Cause it's never, never gonna happen.