Oliver Stone Quotes

Conservatism cherishes tradition; innovation fetishizes novelty. They tug in different directions, the one toward the past, the other toward the future.

When people ask me if I'm liberal or conservative, I say, 'Yeah.' I'm both of them. To be a liberal means to be open-minded and generous and open to new ideas. And to be conservative means to hold onto things that are important, things that shouldn't be cast aside.

Liberalism is the philosophy for our time, because it does not try to conserve every tradition of the past, because it does not apply to new problems the old doctrinaire solutions, because it is prepared to experiment and innovate and because it knows that the past is less important than the future.

You can never plan the future by the past.

We need to open up the future. We also need to keep everything valuable from the past.

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

The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

I want to be progressive without getting both feet off the ground at the same time.

I do not fear … rupture—rupture with habits of thought, with ideas, with behaviors of the past that have prevented us from advancing, from grasping the future between our two arms … I want a rupture with conformity … with half heartedness … with conservatism … with immobility. This rupture I believe necessary. This rupture I have betrothed myself to. This rupture the French people have approved. This rupture I will perform.

To be a Conservative is to prefer the tried to the untried, the fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the super-abundant, the convenient to the perfect present, laughter to utopian bliss.

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.

If we learn the art of yielding what must be yielded to the changing present, we can save the best of the past.

There are periods in history when change is necessary, and other periods when it is better to keep everything for the time as it is. The art of life is to be in the rhythm of your age.

I'm conservative on some issues, and I'm progressive on others.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Free yourself from the rigid conduct of tradition and open yourself to the new forms of probability.

There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.

Building the future holds more attraction than ancestor worship, whichever ancestor we're talking about.

Knowledge comes from the past, so it's safe. It is also out of date. It's the opposite of originality... Experience is the opposite of being creative.

What is now proved was once only imagined.

I do not come bearing a party label on my sleeve - or a quick fix in my back pocket. I do not come with a rigid ideology in my heart - or a soul that tells me to go it alone. I do not come to uproot tradition - or to be imprisoned by it.

Let them look to the past, but let them also look to the future; let them look to the land of their ancestors, but let them look also to the land of their children.

Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.

Over the years I learned that you can have it all - just not at the same time.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.