Conservative Quotes - Page 17

• 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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• There are conservative values where certain lifestyles are imposed and everybody should have 2.4 children and a dog and a cat and a house and you should feel like God and you should believe in God and you should be a capitalist. I don't buy any of that.

  Steve Coogan

  Dog, Children, Believe

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

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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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• No matter how much a young man likes to think for himself, he is always trying to model himself on some abstract pattern largely derived from the example of the world around him. And a man, no matter how conservative, shows his own worth by his personal deviation from that pattern.

  Cesare Pavese

  Men, Thinking, Always Trying

  Cesare Pavese, Alma Elizabeth Murch (1961). “This Business of Living”, p.131, Transaction Publishers

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• Once you begin to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody.

  Virginia Woolf

  Animal, Self, Leader

  Virginia Woolf (2009). “The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1929-1932”, Chatto & Windus

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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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• That the religious right completely took over the word Christian is a given. At one time, phrases such as Christian charity and Christian tolerance were used to denote kindness and compassion. To perform a "Christian" act meant an act of giving, of acceptance, of toleration. Now, Christian is invariably linked to right-wing conservative political thought -- Christian nation, Christian morality, Christian values, Christian family.

  Peter McWilliams

  Christian, Religious, Freedom

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• The young people are the most active and vital force in society. They are the most eager to learn and the least conservative in their thinking. This is especially so in the era of socialism.

  Mao Zedong

  Thinking, People, Eras

  Mao Zedong (2017). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works”, p.147, Lulu.com

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• I don't see myself as conservative, but I'm not ultra-leftist. You build a philosophy of your own. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live.

  Clint Eastwood

  Philosophy, Kids, Views

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• Questions about political theatre always overlook America's most powerful and effective political theatre, which is always thriving: the American musical. The politics is conservative but, to my mind, effective and insidious.

  John Lahr

  Powerful, America, Political

  "Questions for John Lahr" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. January 23, 2009.

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• There is a division within the neo-conservative movement, which is, by the way, one of the tests of its authenticity as a tendency. I would say I was a supporter of Paul Wolfowitz.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Division, Movement, Tests

  "Tariq Ali v. Christopher Hitchens: A Debate on the U.S. War on Iraq, the Bush-Kerry Race and the Neo-Conservative Movement". "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. October 12, 2004.

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• There is a limit to the success of conservative populism and the exploitation of "little guy" or "silent majority" rhetoric, and it is very often reached because of the emaciated, corrupted personalities of the demagogues themselves.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Personality, Guy, Majority

  Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.271, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Every campaign, Garry Wills once wrote, "taught Nixon the same lesson: mobilize resentment against those in power." History taught the same to many conservative and reactionary populist movements, whose real attitude to those in power and authority was one of a servile, envious, vicarious adoration.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Attitude, Real, Campaigns

  Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.271, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Would it not be better to go home and live at the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr. Daubeny on this occasion.

  Anthony Trollope

  Country, Dog, Morning

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children”, p.1730, e-artnow

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• The neo-conservative critics of leftist critics of mass culture ridicule the protest against Bach as background music in the kitchen, against Plato and Hegel, Shelley and Baudelaire, Marx and Freud in the drugstore. Instead, they insist on recognition of the fact that the classics have left the mausoleum and come to life again, that people are just so much more educated. True, but coming to life as classics, they come to life as other than themselves; they are deprived of their antagonistic force, of the estrangement which was the very dimension of their truth.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Plato, Mass Culture, People

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.67, Routledge

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• I can have little patience with those who oppose ... the theory of evolution or what are called "mechanistic" explanations of the phenomena of life because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irrelevant or impious to ask certain questions at all. By refusing to face the facts , the conservative only weakens his own position.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Theory Of Evolution, Littles, Faces

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, 1960.

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