Conservatism Quotes

In attempting to summarize the philosophy of the Republican Party I, myself, have sometimes used such phrases as moderate progressive and dynamic conservative, because we want to be known for what we are, the party of progress. And if we are the party of progress, we must be the party of peace and prosperity, because this is implicit in the term "progress."

Let's do in the federal Government only those things that people themselves cannot do at all, or cannot so well do in their individual capacities.

We must make it our business to explain what we mean by middle-of-the-road government [dynamic conservatism]. This is the courageous, the constructive path that all of us must take.

The middle road [dynamic conservatism] is a kind of path that is always difficult to defend, or at least requires intelligent explanation to defend, because you get your attacks from both flanks. And no commander going into battle of any kind likes to be compelled to fight on both flanks.

I think that all of us should hold this one truth in mind: every Republican, everybody he reaches, every independent, every discerning Democrat should be appealed to on the basis that we are truly a middle of-the-road party.

In many ways, from cutting budget, reducing expenses, keeping down, for example, in every field that I know, we have tried to be on the conservative, middle-of-the-road side. But that has not apparently been publicized sufficiently.

The adherence to conservative principles in the finances of the Government, in the relationship of the Government to the individual, to the State and to the locality... do demand different actions on the part of Government than were so in the past. Now that is what I am trying to do, and I will keep trying.

I realize that anybody that is trying to travel a middle road in any such thing as a great political process of the United States is attacked from both sides.

I will continue to strive and struggle to apply what I think are conservative principles to the modern problems that we have so that not only in our legislative and governmental processes, but so far as I can help bring it about in our thinking processes, we will come to see the benefit of what I call the middle-of-the-road Government.

I believe we should be conservative. I believe we should conserve on everything that is basic to our system. We should be dynamic in applying it to the problems of the day so that all 163 million Americans will profit from it.

I have tried to find a phrase in which to define what the Republican Party has done at home. I have said we were "progressive moderates." Right at the moment I rather favor the term "dynamic conservatism."

We are conservative - for we can conceive of no higher commission that history could have conferred upon us than that which we humbly bear - the preservation, in this time of tempest and of peril, of the spiritual values that alone give dignity and meaning to man's pilgrimage on this earth.

I am that kind of conservative because I am that kind of liberal.

Wise and prudent men - intelligent conservatives - have long known that in a changing world worthy institutions can be conserved only by adjusting them to the changing time.

Liberalism becomes the protection for the far-sighted conservative.

The true conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it.

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 liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command-of his head.

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