Conservatism Quotes

Compassionate conservatism [is] most importantly, making sure that government is not the answer to people's problems.

That is the crux of modern conservatism - government taking strong measures to foster the attitudes and aptitudes necessary for increased individual independence.

Conservatism has always meant more to me than simply sticking up for private property & free enterprise. It has also meant defending our heritage & preserving our values.

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

The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.

You can recruit the populace conservatism for the interests of corporate conservatism that the two things can be married into one unholy union.

Judeo-Christian conservatism overcomes natural selfishness.

I'm not poor now, but unlike some of my friends who are now rich, I haven't embraced conservatism and religion. I'm not opposed to religion if you keep it out of my life.

Conservatism must be based on allowing everyone to become an owner - equity for everyman.

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.

Sometimes, people forget my record of fiscal conservatism on major issues in the state legislature. The greatest example is my voting against the pension borrowing scheme in 1997.

"Moderate" Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger like to boast that they're fiscal conservatives and social liberals. But the social liberalism always ends up burying the fiscal conservatism.

Leaders should not just talk about - but walk the walk of - fiscal conservatism.

We have to sell conservatism to non-conservatives. We have to take our principles and apply them to problems and go sell them to people. We need to show that we have better ideas.

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

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

I would say I am very much more interested in ethics than in code/ morality. I think it's in this way that one avoids the conservatism inherent in "the moral".

I come by my conservatism authentically, not by convenience. And I offer the American people a new direction.

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.

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.

Postwar Europe was morally stagnant, and there was a lot of neo-conservatism.

Government is the enemy of conservatism and freedom.

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.

All I do is convert liberals to conservatism. That's what I do, and that's why they don't like me.

Ted Cruz just in a different league. He understands conservatism because he is.

Conservatism's not the answer. The Republican Party has to reach out, moderate and modify its views to be able to accommodate radical Democrats, minorities, and so forth.

Conservatism in general is bad, and it's racist and sexist.

You don't fight radical conservatism with not-quite-so radical conservatism.

Donald Trump descends in a very powerful way from longstanding tenets of American conservatism, they're just not the movement conservatism we associate with Reagan.

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

Conservatives may believe that impoverished borrowers destroyed Wall Street. But we liberals will not fool ourselves that stupid bankers sank conservatism for good.

Just as the financial crisis has created toxic assets and 'zombie' financial institutions, so has it transformed conservatism into a movement of the living dead.

Conservatism is not a doctrine of contentment. Not a doctrine for the satisfied and the smug. It's a politics that's at war with the world.

If there is a single tragic flaw that mars our biggest enterprises, it is conservatism - the failure to fail, and fail big, in an era of unprecedented volatility and ambiguity.

I'm a conservative kind of person. I don't think rightwing is quite the same thing. But I acknowledge my conservatism of temperament.

Conservatism as an "ism" is always going to be somewhat in tension with a political party.

Conservatism and old fogeyism are totally different things; the motto of one is "Prove all things and hold fast that which is good" and of the other "Prove nothing but hold fast that which is old."

People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.

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

I think that stupidity is like a wild fire burning through the social fabric of an intrinsically reasonable existence.

Civilization is not inherited it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew…

-You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!

If freedom, democracy, and the rights of man are to be preserved through the ages, free men and women must accept the responsibilities that go with their freedoms.

Liberty, with all its drawbacks, is everywhere vastly more attractive to a noble soul than good social order without it — than society like a flock of sheep, or a machine working like a watch.

A forced kindness deserves no thanks

Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people.

There is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

Why is there never a headline that says "Government program ends as its intended goal has been achieved"?

Becoming a part of a movement doesn't help anybody think clearly.