Conservative Quotes - Page 17

• Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Differences, Phrases, Sometimes

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• If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many of his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but it more closely suited his manner of life.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Circles, Reason Why, Found

  Leo Tolstoy (2006). “Anna Karenina”, p.37, Penguin UK

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• The habits of liberals, their automatic language, their knee-jerk responses to certain issues, deserved the epithets the right wing stuck them with. I'd see how true they often were. Here they were, banding together in packs, so I could predict what they were going to say about some event or conflict and it wasn't even out of their mouths yet. I was very uncomfortable with that. Liberal orthodoxy was as repugnant to me as conservative orthodoxy.

  George Carlin

  Wings, Issues, Together

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• The lyric abstrusities of Auden ring mystically down the circular canals of my ear and it begins to look like snow. The good gray conservative obliterating snow. Smoothing (in one white lacy euphemism after another) out all the black bleak angular unangelic nauseous ugliness of the blasted sterile world: dry buds, shrunken stone houses, dead vertical moving people all all all go under the great white beguiling wave. And come out transformed. Lose yourself in a numb dumb snow-daubed lattice of crystal and come out pure with the white virginal veneer you never had.

  Sylvia Plath

  Moving, Weather, White

  Sylvia Plath (2013). “The Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.73, Anchor

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• Santa Barbara people are conservative-not like in L.A., where everybody wears rhinestones on their glasses to show that they own an airplane factory.

  S. J. Perelman

  Airplane, Glasses, Santa Barbara

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• The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people s suffering for his principles.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Philosophical, Pay The Price, People

  E.L. Doctorow (2015). “Citizen Doctorow, Notes on Art & Politics: The Nation Essays 1978-2015”, p.56, The Nation Co. LLC

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• A radical is one of whom people say ''He goes too far.'' A conservative, on the other hand, is one who ''doesn't go far enough.'' Then there is the reactionary, ''one who doesn't go at all.'' All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have

  Woodrow Wilson

  Hands, People, Progress

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link (1976). “The Papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• There is a desire of property in the sanest and best men, which Nature seems to have implanted as conservative of her works, and which is necessary to encourage and keep alive the arts.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Art, Men, Desire

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “Imaginary conversations of Greeks and Romans”, p.207

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• The true conservative is not at home in social struggle. He will attempt to avoid unbridgeable schism, because he knows that a stable social structure thrives not on triumphs but on reconciliations.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Struggle, Home, Triumph

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• The great thing about American women is their energy and the way they love to dress. French women don't really dress; they are too conservative, as it's always a question of money. In America, women are powerful and strong, determined. If they want to be an object, they choose to be in control.

  Jean Paul Gaultier

  Strong, Powerful, America

  "Fashion Spotlight: Jean Paul Gaultier" by Anne Slowey, www.elle.com. January 21, 2010.

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• I didn't want to get married - I thought it was like a cult! It seemed so conservative and unnatural.

  Alicia Silverstone

  Want, Married, Cult

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• I think an old style of addressing environmental problems is ebbing, but the rise of the so-called conservative, political movement in this country is not a trend towards the future but a reaction to this very broad shift that we are undergoing.

  Paul Hawken

  Country, Thinking, Political

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• I try to tell people to do, or advise them, anyway, is adopt conservative philosophies like hard work, preparation, perseverance, love of God, love of country, personal responsibility. Start to think for yourself and then go out and vote. And I think that once they start to do that, they will know where their vote should go.

  David A. Clarke, Jr

  Country, Perseverance, Philosophy

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Very devoted religious people are so extroverted, but at the same time, they're so repressed sexually and so conservative. I've never been able to understand that combination, but I'm fascinated by it.

  Jenny Hval

  Religious, People, Able

  "Jenny Hval's Soft Dick Rock". Interview with Jenn Pelly, pitchfork.com. June 15, 2015.

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• I like to do movies that provoke rather than reinforce conservative values.

  Steve Coogan

  Provoking, Conservative Values, Values

  "Q&A: Steve Coogan on Sex, Drugs & Bad Press". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.esquire.com. July 9, 2013.

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• Civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or a conservative value. It's an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on.

  Jerry Falwell

  Gay, Thinking, Rights

  "The Situation with Tucker Carlson", www.nbcnews.com. August 5, 2005.

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• If mankind were all intellect, they would be continually changing, so that one age would be entirely unlike another. The great conservative is the heart, which remains the same in all ages; so that commonplaces of a thousand years' standing are as effective as ever.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Heart, Years, Age

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1875). “Passages from the English Note-books of Nathaniel Hawthorne”, p.66

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• So I shamelessly say, no, I want him [Obama] to fail, if his agenda is a far- left collectivism, some people say socialism, as a conservative heartfelt, deeply, why would I want socialism to succeed?

  Rush Limbaugh

  People, Heartfelt, Want

  "Rush Limbaugh's Shocking Words for President Obama". "The Hannity Show", www.foxnews.com. January 22, 2009.

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• I was more conservative when I was younger. But I don't think that I've moved left - I think the country has moved right.

  Nick Hanauer

  Country, Thinking, Moved

  Source: gawker.com

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• Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names … Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Mean, Men, Opposites

  "The Flame is Green" by R. A. Lafferty, (Ch. 5), 1971.

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• The opposite of liberal is stingy. The opposite of radical is superficial. The opposite of conservative is destructive. So I declare that I am a radical conservative liberal. Beware of men who use words to mean their opposites.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Mean, Men, Opposites

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• Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.

  William James

  Uprising, Agents, Wheels

  The Principles of Psychology vol. 1, ch. 4 (1890)

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• When we talk about values, I think of rationality in solving problems. That's something I value. Fairness, kindness, generosity, tolerance. That's different. When they [Conservative right wing Republicans] talk about values, they're talking about things like going to church, voting for Bush, being loyal to Jesus, praying. These are not values.

  Bill Maher

  Jesus, Kindness, Thinking

  "Real Time with Bill Maher", November 5, 2004.

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• I have a terrible time during elections. I am way too politically involved. I absolutely never argue politics with anyone, as it makes me crazy and full of judgment and hostility. I have two very conservative friends, whom I cherish and would entrust my life to; we avoid politics like the plague. So in a certain way, it limits how completely we let ourselves know each other, but this is just the way it is and it is the best we can do. And I am secretly convinced that God is a progressive Democrat.

  Anne Lamott

  Crazy, Two, Way

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• In today's impoverished dialogue, critiques of liberalism are often naively called "conservative," as if twenty-five hundred years of Western intellectual tradition presented no other alternatives.

  Camille Paglia

  Years, Intellectual, Twenties

  "Sex, Art and American Culture: New Essays". Book by Camille Paglia, 1992.

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