Jonah Goldberg Quotes

His [President John Adams'] language to the young men at Philadelphia is the most abominable and degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people, and particularly from a Revolutionary patriot.

I mean, you know, this idea that somebody we disagree with on economic or social policy or something we have to turn into some kind of ogre or demon, I think, is a mistake. I mean, it's like telling the American people or half the American people that don't agree with you they're all fools. That's just not true.

Continuing to believe the same thing, even in the face of new evidence to the contrary, is the definition of insanity - except in politics where it's called leadership.

All I know is that I am not a Marxist.

Hillary Clinton doesn't know anything about my policy. I mean, she wouldn't know anything about it.

And everybody’s running around talking about ‘Zionists’ all day. Okay, just keep parroting that over and over again.

If people were in the habit of refering to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang,' it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.

I don't have any insight or understanding on anything about the government. All I think is that it's stupid - which is the one perspective that's almost completely lacking in Washington.

And if, by the end [of this book], you reckon you might still disagree with me, then I offer you this: you'll still be wrong, but you'll be wrong with a lot more panache and flair than you could possibly manage right now.

Where ideas are real and reality is shadow.

I can say with confidence that I never bought into the hype, and I made sure that the people around me didn't buy into the hype, and I did not surround myself with people who fed me the hype. And I'm glad of that as well.

In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.

A dogmatic tone is generally inspired by abysmal ignorance. The man who knows nothing thinks he is informing others of something which he has that moment learnt; the man who knows a great deal can scarcely believe that people are ignorant of what he is telling them, and speaks more diffidently.

Faith is the fool's excuse.

Do they think that I am such a damned fool as to think myself fit for President of the United States? No, sir; I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way, but I am not fit to be President.

Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.

I hated the 1960's feminists," she says. "They were dogmatists, you see. In comes ideology, and out goes common sense. This is my experience of life.

Don't you get the idea I'm one of those goddam radicals. Don't get the idea I'm knocking the American system.

Lately even the harshest critics of President Bush have been forced to admit maybe he's right about freedom's march around the globe. What if we are watching an example of presidential leadership that will be taught in American schools for generations to come? It's an idea gaining more currency.

I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don't have any real knowledge.

The chief enemy of peace is the spirit of unreason itself: an inability to conceive alternatives, an unwillingness to reconsider old prejudices, to part with ideological obsessions, to entertain new ideas or to improve new plans.

The most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticized.