Conservatism Quotes - Page 6

• The degree of confirmation assigned to any given hypothesis is sensitive to properties of the entire belief system... simplicity, plausibility, and conservatism are properties that theories have in virtue of their relation to the whole structure of scientific beliefs taken collectively. A measure of conservatism or simplicity would be a metric over global properties of belief systems.

  Jerry Fodor

  Taken, Simplicity, Degrees

  "The Modularity of Mind". Book by Jerry Fodor, plato.stanford.edu. 1983.

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• I think a Donald Trump presidency raises a new kind of version of conservatism which more closely resembles a kind of Father Coughlin, America first populism and nativism and isolationism, than the confident, modern, cosmopolitan, thoughtful, engaged conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Paul Ryan.

  Bret Stephens

  Father, Thinking, Thoughtful

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• I feel like my political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with.

  Hillary Clinton

  Political, Belief, Raised

  "'Goldwater Girl': Putting Context To A Resurfaced Hillary Clinton Interview". Interview with Scott Simon, wrvo.org. March 26, 2016.

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• Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons.

  Criss Jami

  Men, Psychology, Poison

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• We gotta ditch conservatism and people that believe it, we gotta move on. Otherwise, if we don't, we're just delaying our nightmare, postponing the nightmare. That's Ford O'Connell.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Believe, Moving, People

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• Mr Palliser was one of those politicians in possessing whom England has perhaps more reason to be proud than of any other of her resources, and who, as a body, give to her that exquisite combination of conservatism and progress which is her present strength and best security for the future.

  Anthony Trollope

  Giving, Progress, Body

  1864 Can You Forgive Her?, ch.24.

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• Success breeds conservatism, and that means a love affair with the status quo and an aversion to change.

  Frank Popoff

  Success, Mean, Aversion

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• Conservatism is the tacit acknowledgement that all that is finally important in human experience is behind us; that the crucial explorations have been undertaken, and that it is given to man to know what are the great truths that emerged from them.

  William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Men, Important, Exploration

  William F. Buckley, Jr. (1959). “Up from Liberalism”

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• It is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country?

  Charles Kuralt

  Country, Years, Liberal Media

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• A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic, reformism is basically optimistic.

  Gough Whitlam

  Optimistic, Government, Expectations

  "The Whitlam Government, 1972-1975". Book by Gough Whitlam, 1985.

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• Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand,— in the name of a concern for “human beings”— regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society.

  Barry Goldwater

  Spiritual, Philosophy, Men

  Barry Goldwater (2010). “The Conscience of a Conservative”, p.11, Bottom of the Hill

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• The oldest philosophy in the world is conservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks. ... When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.

  Barry Goldwater

  Goodbye, Religious, Philosophy

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• The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.

  Cornel West

  Color, Skills, White

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

  Mark Twain

  Views, Politics, Next

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.16, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• I want the American people to understand that conservatism... is an ideology of protecting the people and the people's rights.

  Jonathan Krohn

  Rights, People, Want

  "William F. Buckley’s bar mitzvah speech" by Mike Madden, www.salon.com. February 28, 2009.

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• Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.

  Daisaku Ikeda

  Buddhist, Morning, Spring

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• The neo-conservatives, who are closely linked to the neo-corporatists, are rather different. They claim to be conservatives, when everything they stand for is a rejection of conservatism. They claim to present an alternate social model, when they are little more than the courtiers of the corporatist movement. Their agitation is filled with the bitterness and cynicism typical of courtiers who scramble for crumbs at the banquet tables of real power, but are always denied a proper chair.

  John Ralston Saul

  Real, Rejection, Bitterness

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• I get grumpy about the innate conservatism of our tastes; I love bold theatre, and I get annoyed when a heritage piece is really successful.

  Romola Garai

  Successful, Annoyed, Theatre

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• Darwin's prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.

  Niles Eldredge

  Fossils, Lineage, Records

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• But the Church cannot be, in any political sense, either conservative or liberal, or revolutionary. Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things: liberalism a relaxation of discipline; revolution a denial of the permanent things.

  T. S. Eliot

  Discipline, Political, Relaxation

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “Christianity and Culture”, p.84, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Basketball, Girl, Hate

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• Caution and conservatism are expected of old age; but when the young men of a nation are possessed of such a spirit, when they are afraid of the noise and strife caused by the applications of the truth, heaven save the land! Its funeral bell has already rung.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Land, Heaven

  Henry Ward Beecher, Augusta Moore (1859). “Notes from Plymouth Pulpit: A Collection of Memorable Passages from the Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, with a Sketch of Mr. Beecher and the Lecture Room”, p.57

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• 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.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Country, Strong, Honesty

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• At a recent conference, a colleague told one of us that in IPCC discussions, some scientists have been reluctant to make strong claims about the scientific evidence, lest contrarians "attack us". Another said that she'd rather err on the side of conservatism in her estimates, because then she feels more "secure."

  Naomi Oreskes

  Strong, Sides, Scientist

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• A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth.

  Jacques Barzun

  Men, Air, Feet

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