Conservatism Quotes
70 quotes
"Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny. It's the only one. It's based on thousands of years of human experience. There is nothing narrow about the conservative philosophy. It's a liberating philosophy. It is a magnificent philosophy. It is a philosophy for the ages, for all times."
"Every Christian should be both conservative and radical; conservative in preserving the faith and radical in applying it."
"Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future."
"In essence I find that the foundation of modern conservatism is driven by a clinging to God in fear of the world, whereas the foundation of modern liberalism is a clinging to the world in fear of God; albeit, the true foundation should be one's clinging to God in fear of God."
"If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal advantage as if it were God."
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
"Liberals are more likely to see people as victims of circumstance and oppression, and doubt whether individuals can climb without governmental help. My own analysis using 2005 survey data from Syracuse University shows that about 90 percent of conservatives agree that “While people may begin with different opportunities, hard work and perseverance can usually overcome those disadvantages.” Liberals — even upper-income liberals — are a third less likely to say this."
"Best-selling horror fiction is indeed necessarily conservative because it must entertain a large number of readers. It’s like network television. I’m your local cable access station."
"Civilization is not inherited it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew…"
"I claim neither liberalism nor conservatism - one tends to be airheaded while the other tends to be brickheaded."
"It is rare to find an established community of Christians that encourages radical expressions of following Jesus. The natural conservatism of institutions is deeply rooted in the desire to survive, and that desire colors and limits the way they read the Bible and how they see God functioning in the world."
Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality
"It's almost hard to imagine anything more undemocratic than the view that political officials should not debate American wars in public, but only express concerns 'privately with the administration.' That's just a small sliver of Johnson's radicalism: replacing Feingold in the Senate with Ron Johnson would be a civil liberties travesty analogous to the economic travesty from, say, replacing Bernie Sanders with Lloyd Blankfein."
"The conjunction of ruling and dreaming generates tyranny."
"If freedom, democracy, and the rights of man are to be preserved through the ages, free men and women must accept the responsibilities that go with their freedoms."
"Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy - all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values."
"Freedom necessarily means that many things will be done which we do not like."
"Liberty, with all its drawbacks, is everywhere vastly more attractive to a noble soul than good social order without it — than society like a flock of sheep, or a machine working like a watch."
"A forced kindness deserves no thanks"
"Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people."
"Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong."
"If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
"Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals."
"But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going on that could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the crazymaking games going on today are love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf, and girls' basketball."
"Why is there never a headline that says "Government program ends as its intended goal has been achieved"?"
"I, on the other hand, interrupt people because my thoughts fly out of my mouth. My handbag's full of rubbish. And I want to do something that matters with my life. Right now I'd like to write plays, sing in musicals, and/or rid the world of poverty, violence, cruelty, and right-wing conservative politics."
"When Republicans recently charged the President with promoting 'class warfare,' he answered it was 'just math.' But it's more than math. It's a matter of morality.Republicans have posed the deepest moral question of any society: whether we're all in it together. Their answer is we're not.President Obama should proclaim, loudly and clearly, we are."
"But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics."
"There are few genuine conservatives within the U.S. political system, and it is a sign of the intellectual corruption of the age that the honorable term 'conservatism' can be appropriated to disguise the advocacy of a powerful, lawless, aggressive and violent state, a welfare state for the rich dedicated to a lunatic form of Keynesian economic intervention that enhances state and private power while mortgaging the country's future."
"Becoming a part of a movement doesn't help anybody think clearly."
"There is a sort of aesthetic poverty about conservatism"
"There is this common notion that young conservatives are the few, that most people had liberal worldviews when they were young. If this is true, then it is with great irony that a number of old liberals must never had progressed into conservatives as they grew older."
"The data on the economic utility of artists is really, really strong. Artists and entrepreneurs are the same people...and of course entrepreneurs are the people who provide all of the vision for the entire capitalist system. They're absolutely necessary.But conservatives tend to be so blind to art that they can't even see that the artists are the ones who drive the economy forward!"
"I can’t even believe the world we live in. My parents raised me to work hard, not to ever expect any handouts in life – and to treat people with respect."
"I didn’t wake up this morning worrying about what protest color I’d wear, or what the world would do without me because I didn’t wake up feeling like the victimhood narrative was a part of my story. Real women don’t have to remind the world every day that history once slighted them."
"Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us. Society is stronger when we make vows to each other and we support each other. I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a conservative."
"Expect poison from the standing water."
"There’s only one way to improve society. Present it with a single improved unit: yourself."
"Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to"
"[F]or all its reputation for conservatism, cricket in its history has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for innovation. What game has survived subjection to such extraordinary manipulations, having been prolonged to 10 days (in Durban 70 years ago), truncated to as few as 60 balls (in Hong Kong every year), and remained recognisable in each instance?"
"Established churches not infrequently formed an alliance with the aristocracy , joining arm in arm against change."
John Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation
"When I talk to anyone or read the writings of anyone who has any axe to grind, I feel that intellectual honesty and balanced judgement have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone’s thought is forensic, everyone is simply putting a “case” with deliberate suppression of his opponent’s point of view, and, what is more, with complete insensitiveness to any sufferings except those of himself and his friends."
"I think that stupidity is like a wild fire burning through the social fabric of an intrinsically reasonable existence."
"In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing."
"The American government is premised on the theory that if the individual man is to be free, his ideas, his beliefs, his ideology, his philosophy, must be placed beyond the reach of government."
"Government could avoid having opinions about so many things if it would quit subsidizing so many things."
George F. Will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation
"If he had gone to the old school, he was by no means old-school."
"If we conservatives “of color” refuse to promote the welfare state, unfettered abortion, affirmative action, and massive immigration, we are guilty of “selling out."
"The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional faculties are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals"
"He who is not liberal with what he has, does but deceive himself when he thinks he would be liberal if he had more"
"Regulated" rights are not rights. They are niceties and platitudes intended to keep the populace thinking their individual autonomy is respected by their government."
"A statesman who is enamored of existing evils as distin-quished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others."
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