Ideological Foundation Quotes

American exceptionalism is grounded in the founding of the United States upon an idea, rather than upon the ambitions of men.

National Socialism stands or falls by its Weltanschauung.

The modern state appeals to morality, to religion, and to natural law as the ideological foundation of its existence. At the same time it is prepared to infringe any or all of these in the interest of self-preservation.

We see ourselves in the House as sort of the engine room of the ship of the Republican Party. We're down in the bottom... in the bowels shoveling coal into the furnace. And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with coal.

The Left doesn't realize that unless you create a formative culture and a critical consciousness capable of changing the way people think about the common sense assumptions that drive their lives, then you've got an ideological foundation for totalitarianism that not only destroys the capacity to think critically, it destroys the capacity to have convictions at all.

This town [Washington DC] can only operate successfully on myth.

Clients say, 'What's your strategy,' and I say, 'Ask me what I believe first.' That's a far more enduring answer.

Nothing becomes reality in the political life of a nation that was not present in its literature as spirit.

The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office.

America is truly special because it's founded on an idea. It's the ideological and philosophical equivalent of a formless God, in other words, you know? It's, again, the only great country in the world that it is formed out of words.

The prerequisite for an ideology is possession of a basic truth.

Neither man nor nation can exist without a sublime idea.

No political party can possibly lead a great revolutionary movement to victory unless it possesses revolutionary theory and knowledge of history and has a profound grasp of the practical movement.

Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality.

The creation of a world view is the work of a generation rather than of an individual, but we each of us, for better or for worse, add our brick to the edifice.

When you mention the word ideology, everyone has communism in the back of their minds, which was an entirely well formulated ideology and statement of belief. You read the Communist Manifesto and you know what the core of it is.

A policy ought to start with some principle.