Quotes about Conservatism

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

It is July 15, 1903. Cockran is speaking to the Liberal Club in London, England, and "liberal" at the turn of the century means what "conservative" means today - freedom. Your free trade system makes the whole industrial life of the world one vast scheme of cooperation for your benefit. At this moment, in every quarter of the globe, forces are at work to supply your necessities and improve your condition. As I speak, men are tending flocks on Australian fields and shearing wool which will clothe you during the coming winter. On western lands, men are reaping grain to supply your daily bread. In mines deep underground, men are swinging pickaxes and shovels to wrest from the bosom of the Earth the ores essential to the efficiency of your industry. Under tropical skies, hands are gathering, from bending boughs, luscious fruits which in a few days will be offered for your consumption in the streets of London. Over shining rails, locomotives are drawing trains, on heaving surges, sailors are piloting barks, through arid deserts Arabs are guiding caravans, all charged with the fruits of industry to be placed here freely at your feet. You alone, among all the peoples of the Earth, encourage this gracious tribute and enjoy its full benefit, for here alone it is received freely, without imposition, restriction or tax, while everywhere else, barriers are raised against it by stupidity and folly.

To the salesmen, Watson preached individuality and conservatism at the same time: Some men think that personality can be acquired by wearing unusual clothes or by saying something unusual. That is where many young men are wrong. Present your proposition in your own natural way, always keeping your personality behind your product.

HOW TO STAY PROSPEROUS & FREE IN THE 21st CENTURY Americans have always understood that that this nation is unique among nations in the long march of human history, and as we speed into the next century, we seem to be at a crossroads. We are worried that with so many things out of whack; the traditions and institutions that made America great are under attack, standards continue to be lowered, so many minds seem clouded by the fog of liberalism. So let's stay positive; the personal freedoms we still enjoy; the widespread prosperity and bounty unimaginable in any other time and place; the innovations and progress in medicine, technology, communication, science, business, and more; the standard of living never before attained by so many among a nation's citizens...we wonder, will it last? The questions remain. What will ensure that America continues? Can our culture be reclaimed? How can we stay free in the next century? While people of other countries have been restricted m to pursue prosperity, bounded only by the limits of his or her imagination. Besides, only a conservative would ask how we can STAY prosperous and free in the 21st century. A liberal would whine that only a few are prosperous--the evil rich who have somehow gotten rich off the backs of the poor. Liberals don't notice, or understand freedom. They see victims; the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the have-nots. America has had the original ideas of self-government and self-reliance; for which we must thank our Founding Fathers.

Ground Zero of American Political Debate Bipartisanship, Bill Clinton recently told The Washington Post that he wanted to "help flush the poison from the atmosphere." Which would be a beautiful thing... though some of us would miss David Bonior's press conferences. On the eve of his second inauguration, the Clinton made a failed attempt to declare ideological victory. He said that "the battles of his first term largely settled the debate over the role of government in his favor, clearing the way for a new season of cooperation". The President is very wrong. Even The Washington Post couldn't swallow the President's spin whole: "Yet even as Clinton predicted that Republicans will be more accommodating to his philosophy, his comments in a 55-minute Oval Office interview underscored the extent to which a president who arrived here four years ago with a vastly more expensive and partisan agenda himself has yielded to GOP priorities." That phrase, "yielded to GOP priorities," is just one rare sentence in one news article; in short, historians will record that: Conservatism has reordered every political reality of the day.

What's the difference between a liberal and a conservative? A liberal will interpret the constitution, a conservative will quote it!

Conservative ideas are alive and dynamic, the result of a free and intellectually honest vision for the country. As long as conservatism is strong, the future of a strong America is assured.

The man for whom the law exists - the man of forms, the conservative - is a tame man.

Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

Conservative: One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

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.

Intellectually, religious emotions are not creative but conservative. They attach themselves readily to the current view of the world and consecrate it.

No man can be a conservative unless he has something to lose.

History has been kinder to Churchill than many of his contemporaries ever were. Some may be surprised to learn that the following luminary from the field of science-fiction had anything political to say at all: "Winston Churchill, the present would-be British Fuehrer, is a person with a range of ideas limited to the adventures and opportunities of British political life. He has never given evidence of thinking extensively, or of any scientific or literary capacity. . . . His ideology, picked up in the garrison life of India, on the reefs of South Africa, the maternal home and the conversation of wealthy Conservative households, is a pitiful jumble of incoherent nonsense. A boy scout is better equipped. He has served his purpose and it is high time he retired upon his laurels before we forget the debt we owe him. . . ."

Conservatism defends those coercive arrangements which a still-lingering savageness makes requisite. Radicalism endeavours to realize a state more in harmony with the character of the ideal man.

A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation's young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.

Toads are conservative animals, I think, and not much given to expecting the best from fortune. Some weeks ago, well before the end of October, I accidentally dug up one while turning over some garden earth. I was surprised, naturally, when one of the clods heaved over on its die and there, in some annoyance, sat at toad.

There is danger in reckless change; but greater danger in blind conservatism.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk.

The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.

I despise all adjectives that try to describe people as liberal of conservative, rightist or leftist, as long as they stay in the useful part of the road.

Vegetable gardening might be considered one of the great conservative rituals.

A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.

A man who is not a liberal at sixteen has no heart; a man who is not a conservative at sixty has no head.

I'm a liberal when it comes to human rights, the poor; so's George Bush. . . . But Liberal and Conservative don't mean much to me anymore. Does that mean we care about people and are interested and want to help? And if that makes you a Liberal, so be it.

The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.

RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.