A Quote by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Conservatism is the politics of reality

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Quote Topics

Conservatism Politics Reality

Quote Author

William F. Buckley, Jr.
American - Journalist
November 24, 1925 - February 27, 2008

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.

Northeastern conservatism is moderate, accepts the modern welfare state, and dislikes mixing religion with politics. Western conservatism is hawkish, hates government, and embraces individual freedom. Southern conservatism is populist, draws on evangelical Christianity, and plays upon racial resentments.

Jacob Weisberg

Conservatism is not the problem. Conservatism is the founding of this country, essentially. Conservatism isn't even really an ideology. Conservatism is just what is right, proper, decent, and moral. That's all it is.

Rush Limbaugh

I think there's a growing amount of confusion about what conservatism is. And it is time for us to understand that conservatism is not built on personalities. Conservatism is not simply built on how angry you might seem from time to time. Conservatism is built on a set of principles and ideas that our nation desperately needs.

Marco Rubio

Conservatism, for me, is the philosophy and the politics of attachment.

Roger Scruton

Reality - Dreams = Animal Being Reality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism) Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism) Dreams - Humor = Fanaticism Dreams + Humor = Fantasy Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom

Lin Yutang

I've often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics.

Yehuda Amichai

I'm not denying I've espoused and promoted conservatism, because conservatism's the alternative. And conservatism works every time it's tried. That's the problem. It really hasn't been tried. Even people claiming to be conservative, when it comes time to actually do it, chicken out.

Rush Limbaugh

Reality television has borrowed so much from the world of politics, whether it's alliances or voting or the kind of strategizing that's done. Anything like that came from politics well before it came from reality television.

R. J. Cutler

I don't really like labels in politics, but I will gladly accept the label of conservatism.

Marco Rubio

David Frum has been saying - [Donald] Trump is all about conservatism as identity, not conservatism as ideology.

Chris Hayes

You can recruit the populace conservatism for the interests of corporate conservatism that the two things can be married into one unholy union.

Jeff Sharlet

Social conservatism, business conservatism: the one side constitutes the other, like some infernal Mobius strip.

Rick Perlstein

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

Donald Trump descends in a very powerful way from longstanding tenets of American conservatism, they're just not the movement conservatism we associate with Reagan.