Conservatism Quotes - Page 6

• 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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• Not my political ideas. Conservatism didn’t buy this house. First and foremost I’m a businessman. My first goal is to attract the largest possible audience so I can charge confiscatory ad rates. I happen to have great entertainment skills, but that enables me to sell airtime.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Skills, Ideas, Goal

  "Late-Period Limbaugh". www.nytimes.com. July 6, 2008.

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• 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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• Conservatism is the policy of make no change and consult your grandmother when in doubt.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Grandmother, Political, Doubt

  Woodrow Wilson (1986). “The Papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• Conservative feminism is such an artificial term that doesn't mean much to me. For me conservatism means accepting reality. I acknowledge that there are differences between men and women.

  Kristina Schroder

  Mean, Reality, Men

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Resistance, which is the function of conservatism, is essential to orderly advance.

  Agnes Repplier

  Change, Party, Political

  Agnes Repplier (1920). “Points of Friction”

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• It is a striking example of modern conservatism's emphasis on the moral worth of the individual. ... When I look at the debate over Elian...I have to say that rarely have I been prouder of my fellow conservatives.

  Ramesh Ponnuru

  Example, Looks, Moral

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• William Graebner's brilliant analysis of America's struggles over the meaning of Patty Hearst gives us not only new perspectives on the 1970s, on Americans' fundamental understandings of their world in a bicentennial year that offered little to celebrate, but also on the longing for heroism and the desire for belief in free will that Graebner believes structured the rise of Reagan-era conservatism. This is a masterful work of cultural history.

  Beth Bailey

  Believe, Struggle, Years

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• Here lies one of the world's rare generalized TINAs. There Is No Alternative to creativity and innovation: these days, obscurantism and conservatism will do for you every time.

  Robert Heller

  Lying, Creativity, Innovation

  "The Decision Makers". Book by Robert Heller, 1989.

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• You will be right, over the course of many transactions, if your hypotheses are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.

  Warren Buffett

  Facts, Reason, Hypothesis

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• My anti-liberal position should not be mistaken for conservatism.

  Camille Paglia

  Anti Liberal, Should, Mistaken

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays”, p.241, Vintage

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• The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Philosophy, Guiding Principles, Often Is

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Postscript: Why I Am Not a Conservative, 1960.

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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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• When the Republican Party is no longer the party of fiscal conservatism then clearly I would argue that we've lost our way.

  Bobby Jindal

  Party, Way, Arguing

  "GOP Struggles for Salvation". Austin American-Statesman, November 23, 2008.

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• Conservatism is itself a modernism, and in this lies the secret of its success.

  Roger Scruton

  Lying, Secret, Modernism

  Roger Scruton (2006). “A Political Philosophy”, p.194, A&C Black

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• Just as liberalism is the main force that drives conservatism and maintains its popularity in some quarters, conservatism is the reason liberalism continues to enjoy the traction that it does in our poor civilization.

  L. Neil Smith

  Civilization, Doe, Popularity

  "Revenge of the Cookie Monster". The Libertarian Enterprise, www.ncc-1776.org. January 31, 2010.

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• Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Believe, Self, Ideas

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Postscript: Why I Am Not a Conservative, 1960.

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