Andre Maurois Quotes

A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.

Conservatism, by all means, if there is anything worth conserving, and everything not worth losing. Revolution, if there is nothing worth conserving, and everything worth gaining. These are the class lines upon which the political battle is being fought, and is bound to be fought

I feel like we're in the era now where politics is pop culture. Everybody has an opinion that's politically based. We see what the Trump administration has done, and I've never seen my culture this engaged in the political process.

In the business of politics, emotions and productive dissatisfaction with the world in which we live today are gradually being covered up by the minutiae of ordinary life.

I was never a left-winger, actually. I was a pretend left-winger because it was more interesting than being a right-winger.

I think that liberals need to grow up.

The socialist or anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests.

Leftist things have done terrible harm to our party in the past … Socialism may be ruined by rightism and may also be ruined by leftism. China must guard against rightism but should mainly guard against leftism.

I don’t think America really has a left wing. The American left wing would fit very comfortably in the center or center right of most European political spectrums.

What if you are a conservative in a liberal environment? Then what you are conserving is liberalism.

An economic failure becomes a radicalizing force only when an alternative exists

There were times at Harvard when I actually longed to hang out with a few more Trotskyists, rather than yet another set of future consultants and investment bankers. At least the Trotskyists cared about the important stuff.

Politically at that time, with Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the White House, it wasn't looking too great for the Left. And we were always on the left.

I am kind of an idealist but I became a DUP member because I believe politics should have a footing in harsh reality.

Well, I don't know too many governors who are flaming ideologues.

What is considered 'conservative' and what is considered 'liberal' changes in any given era.

I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

I'm just sick of the way things are. We're in an age in which we can't live without accepting the logic of the market. Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy... What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us.

I was born in 1948, so I'm a '60s kid, and in the '60s everyone talked all the time, endlessly, about socialism versus capitalism, about political choices, ideology, Marxism, revolution, 'the system' and so on.

It is a different world than when I was growing up, and you started to just kind of maintain at thirty-five and just hope you can hope it together. People are a lot more vital than I am and doing all kinds of things and leading really important movements.

There's something about Barack Obama that induces Americans to imagine what they cannot see. The Right envisions a vile socialist, while many on the Left picture an inspired liberal, politically restrained in his first term but now free to pursue his true beliefs.

Shortly afterwards my father told me that he might be going into the Eastern Zone of Germany. At that time my own mind was closer to his than it had ever been before, because he also believed that they are at least trying to build a new world.

Ladies and gentlemen, communism didn't fall. It was pushed.

This old Germany was partly defeated in its conflict with the progressive ideas of socialism, for it had given the people nothing that could serve as a successful alternative to socialism.

I - you know, I loved politics more as a younger man.