quotations about conservatives
Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change.
FRIEDRICH HAYEK
Why I Am Not a Conservative
What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, Feb. 27, 1860
If you want to overthrow the government, you're not really conservative anymore.
DAVID HOGG
#NeverAgain: A New Generation Draws the Line
Conservatism is not supposed to be against change or progress... It is supposed to be skeptical of grandiose or reckless schemes which throw out the good in pursuit of the perfect.
JONAH GOLDBERG
"Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?", National Review, May 10, 2000
The twentieth-century conservative is concerned, first of all, for the regeneration of the spirit and character -- with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest.
RUSSELL KIRK
The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
"Stop the Madness", Toronto Globe & Mail, July 6, 2002
The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
MARK TWAIN
Mark Twain's Notebook
They are the driven crowds that makes the army of the authoritarian overlord; they are the stuffing of conservatism ... mediocrity is their god.
DONALD EWEN CAMERON
attributed, Father, Son and CIA
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
HANNAH ARENDT
The New Yorker, Sep. 12, 1970
When a conservative can be the biggest thing in talk radio, earning $30 million a year and attracting 20 million devoted listeners every week--all while addicted to drugs--I'll admit liberals have reason to believe that conservatives are some sort of superrace, incorruptible by original sin.
ANN COULTER
How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must)
In liberals' worldview, any conservative who is not Jesus Christ is ipso facto a "hypocrite" for not publicly embracing dissolute behavior the way liberals do.
ANN COULTER
How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must)
What's amazing is that the conservative movement since the Reagan era has been telling conservatives that government is the problem, which makes experience running government a mark on your record. Having constructive ideas about what government could do makes you a suspicious character. Honestly, the very idea that you would thirst to hold high government office in Washington, D.C. almost inherently disqualifies you as a Republican. So everybody is qualified, and therefore you pick the person who most entertains you. It's a weird thing.
RACHEL MADDOW
interview, Playboy, March 1, 2016
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.
MICHAEL JOSEPH OAKESHOTT
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Illustrated London News, Apr. 19, 1924
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
RONALD REAGAN
Reason Magazine, Jul. 1, 1975
When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral-bell is already rung.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
speech at High Wycombe, England, November 27, 1832
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Radio Address to the New York Herald Tribune Forum, Oct. 26, 1939
Conservatives believe in equality of opportunity. Liberals believe in equality of outcome.
MIKE ROSEN
Rocky Mountain News, Mar. 31, 2000
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary