Top 7 Quotes & Sayings by James Burnham

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American politician James Burnham.

Last updated on April 15, 2025.

James Burnham was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the philosophy department at New York University; His first book was An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (1931). Burnham became a prominent Trotskyist activist in the 1930s. He rejected Marxism and became an even more influential theorist of the right as a leader of the American conservative movement. His book The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941, speculated on the future of capitalism. Burnham was an editor and a regular contributor to William F. Buckley's conservative magazine National Review on a variety of topics. He rejected containment of the Soviet Union and called for the rollback of communism worldwide.

American - Politician | November 22, 1905 - July 28, 1987

Source: Wikipedia

Armaments do not, generally speaking, cause wars. This notion, the logical crux of all arguments in favor of disarmament, turns the causal relationship upside down. Actually, it is wars, or conflicts threatening war, that cause armaments, not the reverse.

James Burnham

An ideologue - one who thinks ideologically - can't lose. He can't lose because his answer, his interpretation and his attitude have been determined in advance of the particular experience or observation. They are derived from the ideology, and not subject to the facts.

James Burnham

Modern liberalism, for most liberals is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow.

James Burnham

The economic egalitarianism of the liberal ideology implies ... the reduction of Westerners to hunger and poverty.

James Burnham

Where there is no alternative there is no problem.

James Burnham

Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.

James Burnham

There is no one force, no group, and no class that is the preserver of liberty. Liberty is preserved by those who are against the existing chief power. Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces are as trivial, in relation to entrenched power, as the old court jesters.

James Burnham

Top 7 Quotes & Sayings by James Burnham

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