Michael J. Knowles Quotes

The Right-wingers everywhere take themselves too seriously, whether in the U.S. or the U.K. And, by the way, so does the Left. The Left can take itself a little too seriously as well.

There’s too much orthodoxy in the political process today.

The fact is, you never compromise on principles. If people on the far Left, they have a principle to stand by, they should never compromise; those of us on the Right should not either.

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.

Terror … is often the result of giving politics a sacred, absolute dimension.

There are voices in the Republican Party today who preach pragmatism, who champion conciliation, who counsel compromise. I stand here today to reject those deceptions.

… the politically engaged will tend also to be the most closed-minded.

Heartless zealotry, whether from the religious right or from the teachers' union on the left, is always troubling.

We cannot sway extremists with rational thought or with our ideas of right and wrong.

When the Tea Party comes to town, compromise goes out the door.

God help us from those who believe that they are the sole possessors of truth. How we manage at times to agree willingly to become prisoners within our own minds and souls of beliefs and ideas on which we can never be flexible.

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.

The left has chosen the courts as a major battlefield over social issues.

I believe that dogma is often evil.

Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.

How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?

Almost any theory, even those espoused by self-proclaimed conservatives, can be held in an absolutistic way such that it poses a threat to institutional and political stability.

The field of politics always presents the same struggle. There are the Right and the Left, and in the middle is the Swamp. The Swamp is made up of know-nothings, of them who are without ideas, of them who are always with the majority.

We don't really have elections; we fight crusades. Each side usually believes that it, and it alone, represents the true faith.

There is a segment of the right that doesn't care about winning, what I call zealotry masquerading as principle.

The menace is ideology, the dogma of politics. It is a prison that makes the American experiment impossible.

Left-wing confusion spawns right-wing reaction.

It is in the uncomprisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma that the danger lies.

If you have ideology, you are less tolerant of the variant point of view.

You do not compromise with the right wing of the Republican party.