John Maynard Keynes Quotes

Conservatives conserve and that is why they became irrelevant.

They offer me neither food nor drink - intellectual nor spiritual consolation... [Conservatism] leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal; it conforms to no intellectual standard, it is not safe, or calculated to preserve from the spoilers that degree of civilization which we have already attained.

The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.

Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear.

A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now!

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone, you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of change.

The conservative may clamor against reform, but he might as well clamor against the centrifugal force. He sighs for the "good old times,"--he might as well wish the oak back into the acorn.

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

Now, there's a desire for order, authority coming from a feeling that society has gone too far to the side of individualism and liberalism.

True conservatives fear anything that is at odds with the status quo, even to the extent of being unable to recognise when the status quo represents injustice. And reactionary conservatives actually want to tear down the gains of the past.

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?

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.

Neoconservatism is a blend of realism and idealism. We have the idealism of the liberals but we look at the reality of the world.

Liberal institutions soon cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established.

I am goddamned tired of listening to all this babble for reform. America is a hell of a success. Why tinker with it? The country don't need any legislation.

Man is by nature a conservative animal and government is his instrument for preventing rapid change.

What brought Conservatism into existence was the French Revolution.

All political action aims at either preservation or change.

The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargical spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit. Otherwise degeneration gains the upper hand and the whole humanity is led stray by the reactionary forces. Such a state of affairs leads to stagnation and paralysis in human progress. The spirit of Revolution should always permeate the soul of humanity, so that the reactionary forces may not accumulate to check its eternal onward march.

America is a conservative country with a small “c” - they want change, but they don’t want too much change too fast.

We [Republicans] don’t need any new ideas.

Every conservative policy, however, is fated from the start to fail; after all, its essence is to stop something unstoppable, to resist a development that cannot be impeded.

Progress is never accepted by everybody.

Certainly none of the advances made in civilization has been due to counterrevolutionaries and advocates of the status quo.

Conservatives want to keep things as they are, while revolutionists turn things upside down.