conservative quotes

If Conservative Backbench MPs wanttoget on inpolitics they will have to find a foothold in the narrow strip of land that lies between sycophancy and rebellion.

- Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker (of Dorking)
  Queen's Speech in the House of Commons.

He has all the qualities that go to the making of a leader of the Conservative Party. He is not stupid, but he is very dull. He is not eloquent, but he talks well. He is not honest, politically, but he is most evangelical.He has a Beckett little money, but not much. He always conforms to the party policy.

-Baron
  Commenting on Sir Samuel Hoare's appointment as Foreign Secretary.

The most conservative man in the world is the British trade unionist, when you want to change him.

- Ernest Bevin
  Speech to Trade Union Congress, 8 Sep.

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

- Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
  The Cynic's Word Book. Retitled  The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

We are now, as we have always been, decidedly and conscientiouslyattached to what is called theTory, and which might with more propriety be called the Conservative party.

-Critias
  Quarterly Review,  Jan.

A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.

- Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
  Speech, House of Commons,17 Mar.

It wassaid of Metternichthat hewasso conservativethat had he been present at the Creation, he would have begged God to have retained Chaos.

- Bergen Evans
  Note in his Dictionary of Quotations.

   I never dared be radical when young For fear it would make me conservative when old.

- Robert Lee Frost
  'Ten Mills,1. Precaution'.

I often think it's comical How Nature always does contrive That every boyand every gal That's born into the world alive Is either a little Liberal Or else a little Conservative!

- Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
  Private Willis's song, Iolanthe, act 2.

I can foresee no circumstance in which I would allow my name to be put forward for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

- Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine
  Said on numerous occasions in the autumn.

Conservative ideal of freedom and progress: everyone to have an unfettered opportunity of remaining exactly where they are.

- Geoffrey Madan
Collected in Geoffrey Madan's Notebooks (published1981).

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who hasnever learned towalk forwards. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.

- Franklin D(elano) Roosevelt
  Radio broadcast, Oct.

The Church of England should no longer be satisfied to represent only the Conservative Party at prayer.

- (Agnes) Maude Royden
  Address to the Life and Liberty Movement, London,16 Jul.

That man's the true Conservative Who lops the mouldered branch away.

-Tennyson
  'Hands All Round',1.7^8.

The Republic will be conservative, or it will be nothing.

- (Louis) Adolphe Thiers
  Presidential address to the French National Assembly, Nov. English    playwright,    actor    and    songwriter.    He    is    usually remembered for his classic farce, Charley's Aunt (1892).

Bankers'genes were Wall St. genes, especially in the big cities. If the banks were conservative just now [1955], it was because bankers still awoke in the middle of the night, trembling and sweaty with thoughts of the Crash. But intimeanewgenerationwouldtake over: ambitious, overcompetitive young men to whom1929 would be merelya date on a page; such menwould sever theroots of memory as if with an ax, not realizing that those tendrils were also the rudder cables.

- Michael M Thomas
  The Ropespinner Conspiracy.

There was a heated division of opinion in the lobbies during the interval but a small conservative majority took the view that it might be as well to remain in the theatre.

- Kenneth Tynan
  Reviewing the play The Glorious Days.