Irving Kristol Quotes

Quotes about:

• Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

  Irving Kristol

  Witty, Freedom, Humorous

  "Two Cheers for Capitalism". Book by Irving Kristol, May 11, 1978.

  60 Copy quote

• Even if we can't be happy, we must always be cheerful.

  Irving Kristol

  Happiness, Gratitude, Appreciation

  38 Copy quote

• A conservative is a liberal mugged by reality.

  Irving Kristol

  Reality, Conservative

  26 Copy quote

• If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without ... let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves. Men are then divided into the wise and the foolish, the philosophers and the common men, and atheism becomes a guarded, esoteric doctrine - for if the illusions of religion were to be discredited, there is no telling with what madness men would be seized, with what uncontrollable anguish.

  Irving Kristol

  Wise, Lying, Believe

  19 Copy quote

• It is ironic to watch the churches, including large sections of my own religion, surrendering to the spirit of modernity at the very moment when modernity itself is undergoing a kind of spiritual collapse.

  Irving Kristol

  Spiritual, Ironic, Church

  Irving Kristol (1995). “Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea”, p.440, Simon and Schuster

  15 Copy quote

• A neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality. A neoliberal is a liberal who's been mugged by reality but has refused to press charges.

  Irving Kristol

  Reality, Presses

  7 Copy quote

• The danger facing American Jews today is not that Christians want to persecute them but that Christians want to marry them.

  Irving Kristol

  Christian, Want, Today

  Commentary Magazine, January 1994.

  13 Copy quote

• A liberal is a person who sees a fourteen-year-old girl performing sex acts onstage and wonders if she's being paid minimum wage.

  Irving Kristol

  Girl, Sex, Years

  7 Copy quote

• Nostalgia is one of the legitimate and certainly one of the most enduring of human emotions; but the politics of nostalgia is at best distracting, at worst pernicious.

  Irving Kristol

  Emotion, Nostalgia, Endure

  New York Times Magazine, December 20, 1964.

  17 Copy quote

• If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book.

  Irving Kristol

  Believe, Book, If You Believe

  Irving Kristol (1983). “Reflections of a neoconservative: looking back, looking ahead”, Basic Books (AZ)

  18 Copy quote

• A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society.

  Irving Kristol

  Conservative, Welfare, States

  "Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead". Book by Irving Kristol, 1983.

  16 Copy quote

• An intellectual may be defined as a man who speaks with general authority about a subject on which he has no particular competence.

  Irving Kristol

  Men, Intellectual, May

  Irving Kristol (1995). “Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

  13 Copy quote

• In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despitethe fact that the American Revolution was successful--realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime--while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.

  Irving Kristol

  Children, Successful, Political

  12 Copy quote

• Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel... Jews don't like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.

  Irving Kristol

  Powerful, Military, Heart

  "Congress Bi-Weekly". Book published by the American Jewish Congress, 1973.

  14 Copy quote

• You have to know one big thing and stick with it. The leaders who had one very big idea and one very big commitment. This permitted them to create something. Those are the ones who leave a legacy.

  Irving Kristol

  Commitment, Ideas, Leader

  9 Copy quote

• The major political event of the twentieth century is the death of socialism.

  Irving Kristol

  Political, Events, Socialism

  "Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea". Book by Irving Kristol, September 20, 1995.

  17 Copy quote

• The enemy of liberal capitalism today is not so much socialism as nihilism.

  Irving Kristol

  Enemy, Nihilism, Today

  Irving Kristol (1995). “Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

  29 Copy quote

• ...What is at stake is civilization and humanity, nothing less. The idea that everything is permitted, as Nietzsche put it, rests on the premise of nihilism and has nihilistic implications. I will not pretend that the case against nihilism and for civilization is an easy one to make. We are here confronting the most fundamental of philosophical questions, on the deepest levels. In short, the matter of pornography and obscenity is not a trivial one, and only superficial minds can take a bland and untroubled view of it.

  Irving Kristol

  Philosophical, Views, Civilization

  17 Copy quote

• The liberal paradigm of regulation and license has led to a society where an 18-year-old girl has the right to public fornication in a pornographic movie - but only if she is paid the minimum wage.

  Irving Kristol

  Girl, Years, Minimum Wage

  Wall Street Journal, September 11, 1975.

  12 Copy quote

• After all, if you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you also have to believe that no one was ever improved by a book (or a play or a movie). You have to believe, in other words, that all art is morally trivial and that, consequently, all education is morally irrelevant. No one, not even a university professor, really believes that.

  Irving Kristol

  Art, Believe, Book

  New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1971.

  11 Copy quote

• Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters of life begin when you get what you want.

  Irving Kristol

  Real, Frustrated, Want

  Irving Kristol (1983). “Reflections of a neoconservative: looking back, looking ahead”, Basic Books (AZ)

  8 Copy quote

• The really difficult moral issues arise, not from a confrontation of good and evil, but from a collision between two goods

  Irving Kristol

  Two, Issues, Evil

  Irving Kristol (1983). “Reflections of a neoconservative: looking back, looking ahead”, Basic Books (AZ)

  14 Copy quote

• Young people, especially, are looking for religion so desperately that they are inventing new ones. They should not have to invent new ones; the old religions are pretty good.

  Irving Kristol

  People, Should, Young

  Irving Kristol (1983). “Reflections of a neoconservative: looking back, looking ahead”, Basic Books (AZ)

  7 Copy quote

• If you care for the quality of life in our American democracy, then you have to be for censorship.

  Irving Kristol

  Democracy, Quality, Care

  Irving Kristol (1983). “Reflections of a neoconservative: looking back, looking ahead”, Basic Books (AZ)

  9 Copy quote

• It was a new kind of class war - the people as citizens versus the politicians and their clients in the public sector.

  Irving Kristol

  War, Class, People

  "The Question of Liberty in America". Interview, 1975.

  9 Copy quote

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