A Quote by Thorstein Veblen

Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.

Thorstein Veblen

Quote Topics

Conservatism Conventions Force Maintenance

Quote Author

Thorstein Veblen
American - Economist
July 30, 1857 - August 3, 1929

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

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

You don't want to move toward some utopian literary situation where everybody's free of all conventions. That's ridiculous! Conventions are what you need. You have nothing to break down if you don't have conventions.

Lev Grossman

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

Admirers can be a tremendous force for conservatism.

Brian Eno

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

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

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

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

Chris Hayes

I've always been a little high maintenance. I'm, like, upper-middle-class maintenance.

Anders Holm

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

Rick Perlstein

We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.

William Howard Taft

There is no such thing as low maintenance or high maintenance, just a bunch of women hoping for a capable mechanic.

Liz Vassey

Music must be supported by the king and the princes, for the maintenance of the arts is their duty no less than the maintenance of the laws.

Martin Luther

The libertarian approach is a very symmetrical one: the non-aggression principle does not rule out force, but only the initiation of force. In other words, you are permitted to use force only in response to some else's use of force. If they do not use force you may not use force yourself. There is a symmetry here: force for force, but no force if no force was used.