#Conservatism Quotes

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

“All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effiminated by position of nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.”

“Conservatism is affluent and openhanded, but there is a cunning juggle in riches. I observe that they take somewhat for everythingthey give. I look bigger, but am less; I have more clothes, but am nit so warm; more armor, but less courage; more books, but less wit.”

“The conservative assumes sickness as a necessity, and his social frame is a hospital, his total legislation is for the present distress, a universe in slippers and flannels, with bib and papspoon, swallowing pills and herb-tea.”

“The two parties which divide the State, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made ... Now one, now the other gets the day, and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time, under new names and hot personalities ... Innovation is the salient energy; Conservatism the pause on the last movement.”

“There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.”

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

“The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates.”

“Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.”

“A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.”

“Truly conservative actions arise from intelligent hypotheses, correct facts and sound reasoning.”

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

“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.”

“Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.”

“Conservatism, ever more timorous and narrow, disgusts the children, and drives them for a mouthful of fresh air into radicalism.”

“The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side.”

“What I have advocated is not wild radicalism. It is the highest and wisest kind of conservatism.”

“Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner.”

“I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.”

“Trust him to have his bitter politicsAgainst his unacquaintances the richWho sleep in houses of their own, though mortgaged.Conservatives, they don't know what to save.”

“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.”

“f you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals - if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

“The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative is an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to seed,--because both parties stand on the one ground of the supreme value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep.”

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next.”

“I call the Conservative Party now to a crusade. Not only the Conservative Party. I appeal to all those men and women of goodwill who do not want a Marxist future for themselves or their children or their children's children. This is not just a fight about national solvency. It is a fight about the very foundations of the social order. It is a crusade not merely to put a temporary brake on Socialism, but to stop its onward march once and for all.”

“Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people's bills.”

“What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.”

“We Conservatives hate unemployment.”

“...Conservatives have excellent credentials to speak about human rights. By our efforts, and with precious little help from self-styled liberals, we were largely responsible for securing liberty for a substantial share of the world's population and defending it for most of the rest.”

“There is such a thing as caste, even in the West; but it is comparatively faint; it is conservatism here. It says, forsake not your calling, outrage no institution, use no violence, rend no bonds; the State is thy parent. Its virtue or manhood is wholly filial.”

“The reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies.”

“Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you're just what they're looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.”

“Patriotism has nothing to do with Conservatism. It is actually the opposite of Conservatism, since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same.”

“Conservatives want live babies so they can train them to be dead soldiers.”

“The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”

“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.”

“Wise and prudent men and intelligent conservatives have long known that in a changing world worthy institutions can be conserved only by adjusting them to the changing time.”

“The true conservative is the man who has a real concern for injustices and takes thought against the day of reckoning.”

“A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.”

“A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.”

“I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more.”

“What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?”