A Quote by Benjamin Disraeli

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad.

Benjamin Disraeli

Quote Topics

Am Bad Conservative Constitution Good Our Preserve Radical Remove

Quote Author

Benjamin Disraeli
British - Celebrity
December 21, 1804 - April 19, 1881

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.

Benjamin Disraeli

I call myself a radical conservative. What's that? Well, let's analyze it. Go to the dictionary. Radical: One who gets to the roots of things. And I'm a conservative because I want to conserve the green of the grass, the potability of drinking water, the first amendment of the Constitution and whatever sanity we have left.

Studs Terkel

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

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopt.

Mark Twain

Every Christian should be both conservative and radical; conservative in preserving the faith and radical in applying it.

John Stott

And truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings, the things that made this country great, you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative.

Sharron Angle

[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.

Thomas Jefferson

I am an originalist, to begin with. So, I am a constitutional conservative. I believe that the Constitution enshrines some universal ideals that make our country strong and that are consistent with truth, and so that's the basic thing.

Evan McMullin

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

To me, to be a conservative means to conserve the good parts of America and to conserve our Constitution.

Ron Paul

I am a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method (and conduct).

Rutherford B. Hayes

Our constitution, in short, is a judge-made constitution, and it bears on its face all the features, good and bad, of judge-made law.

A. V. Dicey

When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly.

William J. Clinton

The law, in this country, is dead. The Supreme Court doesn't follow the Constitution, Congress doesn't follow the Constitution. The President doesn't even want to follow the Constitution. And yet we're the ones called radical.