Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

I think some people are just very passionate that things remain the way they were when they were kids.

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

A conservative is a man who will not look at the new moon out of respect for that ancient institution, the old one.

What was good enough for my father is good enough for me" is a treasured English axiom which, if strictly carried out, would have kept us to wooden ploughs and water clocks. In these days we need to be inoculated with some of the nervous energy of the Americans.

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.

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

Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear, without having so much as a smile for the young future.

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

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

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

At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past.

Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed.

All political action aims at either preservation or change.

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

Nothing is more difficult, in general, than to make a nation perceive anything as true, or seek its own interest, in any manner but as its forefathers have opined and acted.

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.

I'm all for prosperity. It's change I object to.

Reactionary: a man walking backwards with his face to the future.

When you talk about change, you know what makes it really tough for people is on the one hand you've got tradition, and on the other hand you've got change; in many people's mind, change equals modernization. Tradition, however. I'm a big tradition guy.

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

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

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?

The conservatives say they are protecting the values of society. They are protecting their privileges.

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