Quotes About Liberalism

Poetic truth—this assertion of a broad characteristic "truth" that invalidates actual truth—is contemporary liberalism's greatest source of power. It is also liberalism's most fundamental corruption.

conservatives suddenly saw that they needed to contest liberalism's capture of the political and cultural establishment.

From the perspective of today, or from that of a Cobden-Mill-Smith liberal, there is not a great deal of difference between the various -isms of the twentieth century. Communism, fascism, nationalism, corporatism, protectionism, Taylorism, dirigisme – they are all centralising systems with planning at their heart.

I diritti individuali non possono essere sottoposti al voto perché la maggioranza non ha il diritto di votare contro i diritti di una minoranza. La funzione politica dei diritti, in una visione liberale, è precisamente quella di proteggere le minoranze dall'oppressione della maggioranza.

But to the government, integration had come to mean acceptance of "British values," full stop. Britain's core national identity was enshrined in gender liberalism, women's physical visibility, an acceptance of homosexuality, and UK foreign policy, especially respect for Israel.

Positive psychologists' more important contribution to the defense of the status qyo has been to assert or find that circumstances play only a minor role in determining a person's happiness. ... Indeed, if circumstances play only a small role - even 25 percent - in human happiness, then policy is a marginal exercise. Why advocate for better jobs and schools, safer neighborhoods, universal health insurance, or any other liberal desideratum if these measures will do little to make people happy?

Los sesenta y setenta fueron, en retrospectiva, una época fabulosa para ser delincuente callejero en la mayor parte de las ciudades norteamericanas. Las probabilidades de recibir un castigo eran tan bajas —fue la época de auge de un sistema judicial liberal y el movimiento a favor de los derechos del delincuente— que cometer un delito sencillamente no resultaba difícil.

Intellectual liberalism was at the forefront of many forms of progress that almost everyone has come to accept, such as democracy, social insurance, religious tolerance, the abolition of slavery and judicial torture, the decline of war, and the expansion of human and civil rights.56 In many ways we are (almost) all liberals now.

Liberalism and their ideas have done more to kill black folks whom they claim so much to love than the Ku Klux Klan, lynching and slavery and Jim Crow ever did, now that's a fact.

Sai qual è il nostro problema, in quanto europei? Che vogliamo continuare a essere noi stessi senza smettere di essere il Tutto. Pretendiamo di globalizzare la nostra individualità. Ma il mondo ha sempre meno bisogno di individui, di razze, di nazioni, di lingue. Quello di cui ha bisogno è che tutti sappiamo l'inglese e, se possibile, che siamo moderatamente liberali. Che a Babele si parli inglese e avanti la Torre, dice il mondo.

Liberalism... is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet.

Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence itis the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet.

Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies. Aristocracy with the meaning - the best are ruling. Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its "people's sovereignty" the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized.

I was raised by parents who really admired the religious leaders of the left, as many 60s and 70s liberals did.

The belief that recipients of government aid are better off the more we spend on them is remarkably persistent. No matter how many times this central tenet of liberalism gets debunked, like Brett Favre, it just keeps coming back.

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.

Liberalism isn't change. It has to be imposed.

There will be trying times during Obama's presidency, and liberty will need staunch defenders. Can Obama reshape liberalism to be, as it was under F.D.R., a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty? That would be a service to our country.

It seems to me that in our lifetime we have passed from the wreck of liberal humanism to the beginning of a new recognition of dogma: isn't it rather tremendous?

We are surviving, in this pleasant liberal enclave where people read and speak freely, on borrowed time. But for those not inside - the dispossessed of the world, the poor, the refugees and those forced into exile - existence is wasteland.

Conservatives are time-biders. And they understand, as Corey Robin explains in his indispensable book 'The Reactionary Mind,' that the direction of human history is not on their side - that is why they are reactionaries - because, other things equal, civilization does tend towards more inclusion, more emancipation, more liberalism.

Let's trace the birth of an idea. It's born as rampant radicalism, then it becomes progressivism, then liberalism, then it becomes moderated conservative, outmoded, and gone.

Even if you have a brain predisposed to liberalism, you might end up with some conservative friends or find inspiring conservative role models who could be very influential on you, and that could send you down a different track in life.

Every subsection of liberalism is always busy attacking another subsection of liberalism, because god forbid they should all band together and actually fight for the cause.