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

—Woodrow Wilson

politics thinking conservative

About Woodrow Wilson

Portrait of Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only Democrat to serve as president during the Progressive Era, when Republicans dominated the presidency and legislative branches. As president, Wilson made significant economic...

More quotations from Woodrow Wilson

Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.

—Woodrow Wilson

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.

—Woodrow Wilson

...it is as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.

—Woodrow Wilson

Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.

—Woodrow Wilson

America is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. Our greatness-built upon freedom-is moral, not material. we have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man.

—Woodrow Wilson

freedom freedom rights greatness passion America

More quotations tagged with “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

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

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

politics power progress conservative

I do not know which makes a man more conservative—to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

—John Maynard Keynes

politics opinion perception outlook conservative