Clinton Rossiter Quotes

• Dictatorship played a decisive role in the North's successful effort to maintain the Union by force of arms...one man was the government of the United States...Lincoln was a great dictator....This great constitutional dictator was self appointed.

  Clinton Rossiter

  War, Successful, Men

  50 Copy quote

• No America without democracy, no democracy without politics no politics without parties, no parties without compromise and moderation.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Party, America, Democracy

  15 Copy quote

• In the end, the difference between Conservatism and Liberalism seems to be this: the Conservative thinks of liberty as something to be preserved, the Liberal thinks of it as something to be enlarged.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Thinking, Differences, Liberty

  13 Copy quote

• A gathering of Democrats is more sweaty, disorderly, offhand, and rowdy than a gathering of Republicans; it is also likely to be more cheerful, imaginative, tolerant of dissent, and skillful at the game of give-and-take. A gathering of Republicans is more respectable, sober, purposeful, and businesslike than a gathering of Democrats; it is also likely to be more self-righteous, pompous, cut-and-dried, and just plain boring.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Cutting, Self, Games

  18 Copy quote

• There is "no happiness without liberty, no liberty without self-government, no self-government without constitutionalism, no constitutionalism without morality--and none of these great goods without stability and order.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Government, Self, Order

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Clinton Rossiter (1961). “The federalist papers”, Signet

  9 Copy quote

• No form of government can survive that excludes dictatorship when the life of the nation is at stake.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Government, Form, Stakes

  Clinton Rossiter (1948). “Constitutional Dictatorship”, p.19, Transaction Publishers

  12 Copy quote

• The most momentous fact about the pattern of American politics is that we live under a persistent, obdurate, one might almost say tyrannical, two-party system. We have the Republicans and we have the Democrats, and we have almost no one else, no other strictly political aggregate that amounts to a corporal's guard in the struggle for power.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Party, Struggle, Two

  Clinton Rossiter (1964). “Parties and Politics in America”, p.3, Cornell University Press

  10 Copy quote

• The final greatness of the presidency lies in the truth that it is not just an office of incredible power but a breeding ground of indestructible myth.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Lying, Greatness, Office

  Clinton Rossiter (1960). “The American Presidency”

  10 Copy quote

• Conservatism is the worship of dead revolutions.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Revolution, Worship, Conservatism

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• The establishment of religious freedom was no less momentous an achievement than the clearing of the great forest or the winning of independence, for the twin doctrines of separation of church and state and liberty of individual conscience are the marrow of our democracy, if not indeed America's most magnificent contribution to the freeing of Western man.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Religious, Winning, Men

  8 Copy quote

• The Americans of 1776 were among the first men in modern society to defend rather than to seek an open society and constitutional liberty.... Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of this political theory sits in its deep-seated conservatism. However radical the principles of the Revolution may have seemed to the rest of the world, in the minds of the colonists they were thoroughly preservative and respectful of the past.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Past, Men, America

  11 Copy quote

• Even if a government can be constitutional without being democratic, it cannot be democratic without being constitutional.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Government, Democratic, Ifs

  Clinton Rossiter (1948). “Constitutional Dictatorship”, p.20, Transaction Publishers

  5 Copy quote

• An annual or frequent choice of Magistrates, who in a year, or in a few years, are again left upon a level with their neighbors, is most likely to prevent usurpation and tyranny ... If rulers know that they shall in short period of time, be again out of power, and ... may be liable to be called to account for misconduct, it will guard them against maladministration.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Years, Choices, Political

  6 Copy quote

• The image the Republicans have of themselves needs the image they have of the Democrats to bring it into sharp focus. The Democrats are plainly a disreputable crowd; the Republicans, by contrast, are men of standing and sobriety. Many a middle-class American in many a small town has had to explain painfully why he chose to be a Democrat. No middle-class American need feel uneasy as a Republican. Even when he is a minority--for example, among the heathen on a college campus--he can, like any white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, warm himself before his little fire of self-esteem.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Self Esteem, College, Men

  4 Copy quote

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