Top 1200 Liberal Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

We're not all the same. A common liberal refrain is that differences between individuals are statistically more significant than those between cultural, ethnic, and racial groups. I don't see why the fact of inter-individual differences would nullify inter-group variance. That's liberal logic for you.

Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation.

A liberal education is at the heart of a civil society, and at the heart of a liberal education is the act of teaching.

I decided to live as an individual and as I grew older, and thought more, and read more and experienced more, my views became more conservative. But my group is liberal. Not only that, they say, 'If you're not liberal and not a Democrat, you're not black. If you're conservative, you're a sellout.' Here, then, I'm living with that kind of a pressure against my individuality.

I remember after one of my dreadful moments on Real Time, where I was ganged up on by everybody, and I went to Starbucks the next day, and the typical liberal tattooed and pierced barista said "Hey, you were on Bill Maher last night. I'm a liberal, but I really admired that you had the courage to stand up to that rude audience."

The former pension minister, the Liberal Democrat Steve Webb said I was trying to abolish the lump sum. Instead, we are going to keep the lump sum and abolish the Liberal Democrats.

In the 2010 general election, the Liberal Democrats built their campaign around a pledge to abolish tuition fees. By the end of that year, however, they had tripled them instead. The Liberal Democrats had made young people feel as if they were on their side. They were not.

The Liberal Party is and always has been an amalgam between the conservative and the liberal with a small L traditions. And so from time to time people will see it emphasising one more than the other. I think it is genuinely an amalgam between the two.

People link the 80s to that very liberal theme, growing up in a very liberal world, having ideals or not having ideals. The 80s were an confusing era.

To those who cynically say today that liberal democracy would be 'obsolete,' I reply: liberal democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and the rule of law were the right way, are the right way, and will be the right way.

If the most liberal man that's ever been in office can get elected when 20 percent of the population identifies as liberal then I think we can elect a conservative when 40 percent of the population identifies themselves as conservative.

I'm liberal on every social aspect, probably. More liberal than people would even believe. But there's still some of that Texas in me, as far as the gun debate. I wish there were no guns; I'm all for gun restrictions. But I'm also of the mind-set, if nothing changes, I'm getting a gun.

A dining club which I was involved in at Oxford University invited Sir Isaiah Berlin to dinner, who I believe was probably the greatest liberal philosopher in the 20th century. I sat beside him and we spoke about liberal philosophy and the events of the 20th century all night over dinner - it was unforgettable!

Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he's a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you'll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you'll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.

I don't think that I would always be asked about my feelings about liberal bias in the media if there wasn't any liberal bias in the media. If it was a moot question, then we wouldn't always have the discussion.

Jesus was a liberal. Jesus was like the original liberal.

We must be both more conservative and more liberal than most students of Christian worship: conservative in holding exclusively to God's commands in Scripture as our rule of worship, and liberal in defending the liberty of those who apply those.

If the Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase Social Security ‘benefits,’ it is because he is more anxious than his Liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend their earnings when and as they see fit

In America, one of the great liberal documents of the world is the Declaration of Independence. One of the great conservative documents of the world is the Constitution of the United States. We need both documents to build a country. One to get it started - liberal. And the other to help maintain the structure over the years - conservative.

Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive.

In 2012, the Liberal Party affirmed overwhelmingly at the policy convention that we are a pro-choice party. It means that we are a party that defends women's rights, and therefore, it would be inconsistent for any Liberal MP to be able to vote to take away women's rights.

No one can know how long this dumbing-down of American religion will persist. But so long as it does, citizens should probably be more vigilant about policing the public square, not less so. . . . [Y]ou cannot sustain liberal democracy without cultivating liberal habits of mind among religious believers. That remains true today, both in Baghdad and in Baton Rouge.

If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many of his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but it more closely suited his manner of life.

The term neo-liberal does not have a good definition. It's mostly used when you are angry with somebody or dislike someone, you call them a neo-liberal. Because otherwise, there is no concrete definition to the term.

I think 'progressive' is different than 'liberal' - I know a lot of people use them interchangeably - but I think I'm far more progressive than I am liberal.

I think the political reality for the Democratic Party is, you know, there are two sides. There's one side saying that we weren't liberal enough and another side saying we're too liberal. I think they're both right.

Many people ... prefer to describe themselves as progressives rather than liberals. To some extent that's a response to the decades-long propaganda campaign conducted by movement conservatives, which has been quite successful in making Americans disdain the word liberal but much less successful in reducing support for liberal policies.

Behind every liberal philanthropist fortune is a huge capitalist score. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can afford now to be liberal - an expensive indulgence - because in their early incarnations they were no-holds-barred capitalists who made lots of enemies conducting business without mercy and in search of pure profit.

There is no such thing as a liberal...There hasn't been for a long, long time. I never use the word and you shouldn't either - nobody should. 'Liberal' is what socialists call themselves when they don't want you to understand that they plan to take away your rights, your property, and eventually your life.

Among all the liberal arts, the first is logic, and specifically that part of logic which gives initial instruction about words. ... [T]he word "logic" has a broad meaning, and is not restricted exclusively to the science of argumentative reasoning. [It includes] Grammar [which] is "the science of speaking and writing correctly-the starting point of all liberal studies."

I wonder if it's conservative or liberal [ inalienable rights idea], because when we think of liberal thought, when we think about the relation to liberty, we're talking about traditional conservatism - as opposed to today's conservatism, which no longer represents those views.

The positive is I'm delighted at the way the Liberal Democrats as a party have supported me and the way in which the work I'm doing, through the Liberal Democrats, has abled to broaden some of the work I work on.

When people ask me if I'm liberal or conservative, I say, 'Yeah.' I'm both of them. To be a liberal means to be open-minded and generous and open to new ideas. And to be conservative means to hold onto things that are important, things that shouldn't be cast aside.

The old liberal rebelled against taxation without responsibility, the new liberal wants the taxation as a handout without responsibility.

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.

In liberal society we claim that freedom of speech is sacred and therefore has an absolute character. But we know (or should know) that "free speech" inhabits a structured space: not only is "hate speech" legally forbidden in liberal societies, but there are also laws protecting the circulation of copyrighted material, and the reproduction of trademarks and patents without explicit permission.

A ‘liberal paradise’ would be a place where everybody has guaranteed employment, free comprehensive health care, free education, free food, free housing, free clothing, free utilities and only law enforcement personnel have guns. And, believe it or not, such a liberal utopia does indeed exist. ... It’s called prison.

It is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

The BBC has tended over the years to be broadly liberal as opposed to broadly conservative for all sorts of perfectly understandable reasons. The sort of people we've recruited - the best and the brightest - tended to come from universities and backgrounds where they're more likely to hold broadly liberal views than conservative.

A neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality. A neoliberal is a liberal who's been mugged by reality but has refused to press charges.

I myself have not met a self?confessed liberal since the late fifties (and even then it was a tacky thing to admit, like coming from the middle class or the Middle West, those two gloomy seedbeds of talent), yet hardly a day passes that I don't read another attack on the “typical liberal” — as it might be announcing a pest of dinosaurs or a plague of unicorns.

The label 'liberal' or 'conservative,' any - every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from 'Iolanthe.' It goes, 'Every gal and every boy that's born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.' What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.

I would encourage anyone who shares our liberal values in or outside parliament to join our party and join our liberal movement. Our door is absolutely open.

Conservative humor is frankly harder than liberal humor. You get points for just being liberal. You can get more points if you make fun of your own side sometimes.

I think there are some liberals who are extremely biased about Fox News and wish to shun it or wish to criticize any liberal who appears on Fox News. That, to me, is not a particularly liberal attitude.

I live in Los Angeles. It's a very liberal city, but it's so hypocritical in what it's liberal about. You can be driving down Hollywood Boulevard, see a guy in lipstick and high heels wearing a fur coat masturbating into a mailbox. People giving him a hard time as they drive by: Hey, is that real fur? Of course not! That's sick!

And above all, what does being liberal have to do with opposing, or, uh, supporting the war against terror? Our enemies in the war against terror are so anti-liberal that you would think it would be liberals leaping to protect the world from these monstrous ideologies.

I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists.

I want to lead the Liberal Democrats so that we can build a liberal movement to stand up to those nationalist forces and stop Brexit, then transform our broken economy so that it is focused on the long-term and works for both people and our planet, tackling poverty and averting climate crisis.

The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'.

As long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period... Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression - and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.

Come on, let's face it. Jeans are like a Volvo or a Saab, or Prius, it's a liberal status symbol. Jeans are liberal status symbols. I know everybody wears 'em now. It's another battle we've lost. We run around looking like a bunch of hippies, and I'm not going to do it.

It's very important to say that what I mean when I say 'liberal' is liberal in the 19th-century British sense. Pro-market, pro-individual, freedom, pro-openness. Not the American sense.

Sculpture and painting are very justly called liberal arts; a lively and strong imagination, together with a just observation, being absolutely necessary to excel in either; which, in my opinion, is by no means the case of music, though called a liberal art, and now in Italy placed even above the other two--a proof of the decline of that country.

I believe in all the qualities of being a liberal. I keep going back to all the great social events in our country's history, starting with the Salem witch trials, where the conservative view was that they're witches and should be burned at the stake, and the liberal view was there's no such thing as witches.

The culture-heroes of our liberal bourgeois civilisation are ant-liberal and ant-bourgeois . . .

I've been an activist all my life. And always a liberal activist, for the simple reason that it is on the liberal left that you find the true recognition for the need for fairness in society. I'm not saying equality, because that you can never achieve, because equality is based on such complex criteria. But fairness is another issue.

Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical - and that doesn't even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.

Liberal Christianity, of course, has enemies, but they are everyone's enemies - sexism, racism, homophobia. But liberal versions of Christianity, which can be both theologically and politically conservative, assume that what it means to be Christian qua Christian is to have no enemies peculiar to being Christian.