181 Quotes About Conservatism

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future.

What keeps earth air breathable? Not oxygen alone. The earth is a freer place to breathe in, every time you love without calculating a return -- every time you make your drudgeries and routines still more inefficient by stopping to experience the shock of beauty wherever it unpredictably flickers.

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!

Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons.

Common Sense" without growth, curiosity, or perspective eventually becomes conservatism and bitterness.

Order! As happens with all political blunderers, the word was ceaselessly upon his lips, and nothing could have persuaded him to admit that the world had changed even a little in the last century.