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

politics time change conservative radical

About Mark Twain

Portrait of Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He has been praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced", with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature". Twain's novels include...

More quotations from Mark Twain

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.

honesty perception appearance

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.

humor brotherhood camaraderie

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

truth deception

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.

facts statistics persuasion

More quotations tagged with “conservative”

It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.

—Robert Anton Wilson

politics time change conservative liberal

To explain why we become attached to our birthplaces, we pretend that we are trees and speak of "roots." Look under your feet. You will not find gnarled growths sprouting through the soles. Roots, I sometimes think, are a conservative myth, designed to keep us in our places.

—Salman Rushdie

myth home conservative place roots

A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.

—Woodrow Wilson

politics thinking conservative

Conservatives have historically seen people falling through the cracks in society and said, That's the way things work, survival of the fittest. Liberals see people falling through the cracks and say, We've got to do something about those people falling through the cracks, so we need a strong government that can provide programs and assist those people. Populists say there shouldn't be any cracks; let's fix them.

—Jim Hightower

politics society government conservative liberal populism

The culture has moved to the point where I find myself in the far left without having gone there. I still feel like I'm putting up my father's old Indiana farmer's values. I think I'm a conservative. I don't think these guys that call themselves "conservatives" really are; these guys are high rollers and plungers and bet-the-farm-on-slender-odds guys; they ain't conservatives. I think a conservative is somebody who cares about conserving the planet and the air and the water and the sky and the sun. It is something mean to say that mankind has fucked up the sunshine.

—Stephen Gaskin

politics conservation culture conservative sunshine

History

27 May 2014 Added