138 Conservatism Quotes to Help You Become Wiser
Conservatism is a political ideology that emphasizes tradition, stability, and gradual change. Many quotes about conservatism reflect these core principles. These quotes often highlight the importance of preserving established institutions and values, and the belief that change should be approached cautiously. They emphasize the need to maintain social order and resist rapid transformation. Quotes about conservatism frequently emphasize the value of individual liberty and limited government intervention, promoting a belief in personal responsibility and self-reliance. They often stress the significance of preserving the values and customs that have stood the test of time, and the need to safeguard the stability and continuity of society.
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Famous Conservatism Quotes
Conservatism is only as good as what it conserves. — Friedrich August von Hayek
Conservatism... offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future. — Benjamin Disraeli
Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles. — Mark Levin
Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future. — Benjamin Disraeli
The meaning of conservatism is not that it impedes movement forward and upward, but that it impedes movement backwards and downwards—to chaotic darkness and the return to a primitive state. — Nikolai Berdyaev
I've always believed that conservatism is the politics of reality, and that reality ultimately asserts itself in a reasonably free society, in behalf of the conservative position. — William F. Buckley, Jr.
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others. — Ambrose Bierce
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. — William E. Gladstone
Conservation is the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good. — Gifford Pinchot
A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now. — Mort Sahl
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
I realized that conservatism was the philosophy that best suited me, with its emphasis on individual liberty, personal responsibility, and merit. — Mark Levin
America is conservative in fundamental principles... but the principles conserved are liberal and some, indeed, are radical. — Gunnar Myrdal
To seek to keep the established constitution unchanged argues a good citizen and a good man. — Augustus
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. — George Orwell
Short Conservatism Quotes
- All significant breakthroughs are break -“withs” old ways of thinking. — Thomas Kuhn
- The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out. — B. H. Liddell Hart
- I'm not much of an economic conservative, and I'm not conservative at all on foreign policy. — Tucker Carlson
- Senator McConnell is by all accounts a decent person. He's pretty conservative, too. — Tucker Carlson
- If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. — Tom Wolfe
- Do not bury our glorious orthodoxy in the treacherous pit of a spurious conservatism. — Abraham Kuyper
- Conservatism is the politics of reality — William F. Buckley, Jr.
- Conservative investors sleep well. — Philip Arthur Fisher
- The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. — Ronald Reagan
- The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. — Mark Twain
Conservatism And Liberalism Quotes
I think experience will teach you a combination of liberalism and conservatism. We have to be progressive and at the same time we have to retain values. We have to hold onto the past as we explore the future. — Oliver Stone
Conservatism is a hard choice for a society that has become accustomed to big government and big entitlements promoted by liberals. — Senator Jesse Helms
I think the most basic difference between Liberalism and Conservatism today, at its core, is that Conservatives just seem to want a better world for themselves - while Liberals just seem to want a better world. — Derek R. Audette
Of course there are different forms of conservatism. I would say just analytically that the Republican Party is more thoroughly conservative and the Democratic Party is more thoroughly liberal today than has been the case for most of modern history. — William Kristol
"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. — Mark Steyn
In the end, the difference between Conservatism and Liberalism seems to be this: the Conservative thinks of liberty as something to be preserved, the Liberal thinks of it as something to be enlarged. — Clinton Rossiter
Conservatism is an active intellectual pursuit; it requires a constant vigilance. It has nothing to do with feelings. Liberalism is the most gutless choice you can make. You just see suffering and say, 'Oh, I feel so horrible!' — Rush Limbaugh
Just as liberalism is the main force that drives conservatism and maintains its popularity in some quarters, conservatism is the reason liberalism continues to enjoy the traction that it does in our poor civilization. — L. Neil Smith
Conservative Quotes
I am above eighty years old; it is about time for me to be going. I have been forty years a slave and forty years free and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all. — Sojourner Truth
The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it. — David Attenborough
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty, you have no brain. — Winston Churchill
What a bunch of garbage, liberal, Democratic, conservative, Republican, it's all there to control you, two sides of the same coin! Two management teams, bidding for control of the CEO job of Slavery Incorporated! — Alex Jones
He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security. — Benjamin Franklin
How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century. — Aneurin Bevan
Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. — George Washington
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. — Alexis de Tocqueville
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children — Chief Seattle
We never know the worth of water till the well is dry. — Thomas Fuller
Conservative Political Quotes
What is the difference between a cactus and a conservative caucus? On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside. — John Diefenbaker
I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe — Kenneth Clarke
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. — Robert A. Heinlein
I have to think that I think it's always been a horse race between this administration's temporary political acumen and their completely, utterly, totally bankrupt policies. And they're coming home to roost. It was always a question of time. These guys aren't conservative. These guys are radicals. — Bradley Whitford
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. — George W. Bush
Donald Trump is not a Republican. Donald Trump is not a conservative. Donald Trump is trying to pull off the biggest scam in American political history, basically a con job, where he's trying to take over the Republican Party by telling people he's someone who he is not. — Marco Rubio
If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist. — Joseph Sobran
The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless. — Russell Kirk
I feel the Conservatives are doing really well both in attracting votes from British Indians and also having successful British Indians in the party. — Rishi Sunak
[Among conservatives] there's been too much pseudo-populism, almost too much concern and attention for, quote, 'the people'.... After all, we conservatives are on the side of the lords and barons.... We...are pulling up the drawbridge against the peasants. — William Kristol
Good Conservative Quotes
Most Christians are being crucified on a cross between two thieves: Yesterday's regret and tomorrow's worries. — Warren W. Wiersbe
The purpose of conservation: The greatest good to the greatest number of people for the longest time. — Gifford Pinchot
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. — John Muir
Conservation means the wise use of the earth and its resources for the lasting good of men — Gifford Pinchot
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Fascism was born to inspire a faith not of the Right (which at bottom aspires to conserve everything, even injustice) or of the Left (which at bottom aspires to destroy everything, even goodness), but a collective, integral, national faith. — Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera
Type design moves at the pace of the most conservative reader. The good type-designer therefore realizes that, for a new font to be successful, it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty. — Stanley Morison
A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted-in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs, who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and hands at the behest of his head. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
The man of conservative temperament believes that a known good is not lightly to be surrendered for an unknown better. — Michael Joseph Oakeshott
As a conservative, I maintain a healthy skepticism of the theory of man-made global warming. I also believe that more people enjoying the fruits of modernity and economic development is a good thing - as long as those people arrived legally and obey the law. — Gary Bauer
Great Conservative Quotes
Take those chances and you can achieve greatness, whereas if you go conservative, you'll never know. I truly believe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Even if you fail, learning and moving on is sometimes the best thing. — Danica Patrick
While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. — Barry Goldwater
A woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. — Barry Goldwater
Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem. — Ronald Reagan
Sexual activity, and the thoughts and fantasies of sex, use up a great portion of our vital force. When that force is conserved through abstinence, it becomes sublimated as spiritual energy. — Patanjali
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
Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time. — George Carlin
When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished. — Theodore Roosevelt
Commercialism is laying its great greasy paw upon everything including the irresponsible quest of thrills; so that, whatever democracy may be theoretically, one is sometimes tempted to define it practically as standardized and commercialized melodrama. — Irving Babbitt
Take those chances and you can achieve greatness, whereas if you go conservative, you'll never know. — Danica Patrick
Conservative Values Quotes
We will not adopt the fantastic hypocrisy of modern conservatism which preaches the values of families and communities, while conducting a direct assault on them through reduced wages and conditions and job security. — Paul Keating
The Obama administration has a nasty habit of equating basic conservative values with terrorism. — Tom Fitton
We must put behind us the tribalism and divisions seen in the referendum between Leave and Remain and focus on defining our place in the world, healing our wonderful nation and putting core Conservative principles and values into action. — Priti Patel
Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. — Aldo Leopold
My experience in life tells me that the values that are now being labeled 'conservative' are the only way that blacks can get ahead. — Shelby Steele
I love that we are one of the least unionized states in the country...We don't have unions in South Carolina because we don't need unions in South Carolina...And we'll make the unions understand full well that they are not needed, not wanted, and not welcome. — Nikki Haley
Let Detroit go bankrupt. — Mitt Romney
Don't try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom. — Mitt Romney
The future of Conservatism lies in our beliefs and values, not by throwing them away. We need to shed associations that bind us to past failures, but hold faith with those things that make us Conservatives. — Iain Duncan Smith
You don't have a right to a house, you don't have a right to a job, you don't have a right to medical care. — Ron Paul
Anti Conservative Quotes
The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents. — William F. Buckley, Jr.
I admire that about the Republicans: The evidence does not faze them. They are not bothered at all by the facts. — William J. Clinton
Conservatives aren't anti-immigrant - conservatives are pro-legal immigration. — Marco Rubio
Democrats legislate; Republicans investigate. — Lyndon B. Johnson
Herbert Hoover once ran on the slogan, 'Two cars in every garage'. Apparently, the Republican candidate this year is running on the slogan, 'Two families in every garage'. — Harry S. Truman
My first wish is, to see this plague of mankind banished from the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements, than in preparing implements, and exercising them, for the destruction of mankind. — George Washington
What is it with conservatives? Seriously, I'm not trying to be partisan but it seems like if they're anti-illegal alien, they have illegal aliens working for them. If they're anti-gay, they turn out to be gay. If they're super Christian, they're a witch. — Bill Maher
I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who's hitting you? It's about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them. — Harry S. Truman
Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals. — Mark Twain
Even as someone who's labeled a conservative - I'm a Republican I'm black, I'm heading up this organization in the Reagan administration - I can say that conservatives don't exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they're welcome. — Clarence Thomas
People Writing About Conservatism
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More Conservatism Quotes
I happen to think that conservatism, when properly applied to the 21st century, could actually help everybody. And the message of Trump's campaign was obviously not super-appealing to Latino Americans, black Americans and so forth. That really bothered me. — James David Vance
Conservatism has had from its inception vigorously positive, intellectually rigorous agenda and thinking. That agenda should have in my three pillars: strengthen the economy, strengthen our security, and strengthen our families. — Mitt Romney
Look, I think liberals have reasonable gripes with Fox News. It does lean to the right, primarily in its opinion programming but also in its story selection (which is fine by me) and elsewhere. But it's worth remembering that Fox is less a bastion of ideological conservatism and more a populist, tabloidy network. — Jonah Goldberg
Alas, in 1929 came the Stock Market crash and everything changed and became worrisome. People started practicing conservatism because of financial losses, myself included. — Pola Negri
The twentieth-century conservative is concerned, first of all, for the regeneration of the spirit and character – with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest. — Russell Kirk
Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality. — Friedrich August von Hayek
Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny. It's the only one. It's based on thousands of years of human experience. There is nothing narrow about the conservative philosophy. It's a liberating philosophy. It is a magnificent philosophy. It is a philosophy for the ages, for all times. — Mark Levin
Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools at their disposable that make it possible for them to access all the hope, all the promise, all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that. — Marco Rubio
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. — Michael Joseph Oakeshott
The Founders were not democrats and socialists..., but conservatives who had a healthy distrust of political passions and who devised a complex system designed to frustrate the schemes of social redeemers and others convinced of their own invincible virtue. — David Horowitz
The Society or Fraternity of Freemasons is more in the nature of a system of Philosophy or of moral and social virtues taught by symbols, allegories, and lectures based upon fundamental truths, the observance of which tends to promote stability of character, conservatism, morality and good citizenship. — William Howard Taft
Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I'd been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communism and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts. — Ian Fleming
A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic, reformism is basically optimistic. — Gough Whitlam
But the Church cannot be, in any political sense, either conservative or liberal, or revolutionary. Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things: liberalism a relaxation of discipline; revolution a denial of the permanent things. — T. S. Eliot
Writing is in fact an entirely outworn, decayed and corrupt convention whose chief & most conspicuous character is its monumental witness to the conservatism, laziness and irrationality of men and women. — Eric Gill
To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising. — Richard Hofstadter
They say you never grow poor taking profits. No, you don't. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market. Where I should have made twenty thousand dollars I made two thousand. That was what conservatism did for me. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore
The whole world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young, and everlastingly harp on the fact they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution which would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curses of the world. — Robertson Davies
Among the best traitors Ireland has ever had, Mother Church ranks at the very top, a massive obstacle in the path to equality and freedom. She has been a force for conservatism... to ward off threats to her own security and influence. — Bernadette Devlin
I am not a prophet in any sense of the word, and I entertain an active and intense dislike of the foregoing mixture of optimism, fatalism, and conservatism. — Herbert Croly
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
Look, I'm a conservative, I'm a very conservative guy, and - and the Trump campaign is making your job over at NBC really, really, really easy in terms of going after conservatives and Republicans if he's the standard bearer for conservatism. — Ben Shapiro
Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied. — Herman Melville
Darwin's prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record. — Niles Eldredge
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