Ideological Impact Quotes

What I write about is how much influence it's had in things like state legislatures and governorships and congressional races. The other thing that's even more important in the long run is that very extreme money has affected the ecosystem of ideology in the country.

Inspiration is an underexamined part of political life and presidential leadership.

Active people don't change the world profoundly; ideas do. Napoleon is less important in world history than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Perhaps, when we examine the causes of many social changes and political upheavals, we will find the marks of its presence and its principal ideals.

A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.

Here's one measure of the man and the scope of his achievement: No serious historian will be able to write about 20th-century America without discussing Bill Buckley. Before Buckley, there was no conservative movement. After Buckley, there was Ronald Reagan.

Contemporary Conservatism ... is like contemporary art, seldom much admired in its time; it only achieves acceptance and admiration in retrospect.

Yeah, but in the end his followers take what they want from his philosophy. Maybe it doesn't matter what's going on in David Icke's mind. It's how other people take him.

I suppose when I was writing 'V for Vendetta' I would in my secret heart of hearts have thought: 'Wouldn't it be great if these ideas actually made an impact?' So when you start to see that idle fantasy intrude on the regular world... It's peculiar.

Politics is marginal, but literature moves along by indirection.

Ideology has consequences.

The philosophy of individualism owes a great deal to the tradition of novel-writing and novel-reading. In its development and in its aesthetics, the novel is not politically neutral; it has been a participant in history all along.

There is not always a commanding relationship between the way an artist votes and any particular work he writes.

It's certainly possible to write fiction that isn't trivial and isn't what people would call political, but it is very hard to figure out how, because our ordinary lives have such a strong tincture now of the whole world.

The idea is to make the script out of a political analysis and then to convey that - sometimes in poetry, sometimes science, sometimes all it takes is a film. The film itself is less and less spectacular because I think very strongly now the more spectacular you are, the more you are absorbed by the things you are trying to destroy.

Only my death will determine whether I am 'Mohamed Gandhi', Jinnah's slave, destroyer of the Hindu religion or its servant and protector.

Each social formation, through each of its material activities, exerts its influence upon the civic whole; and each of its ideas and ideals wins also its place and power.

To an imagination of any scope the most far-reaching form of power is not money, it is the command of ideas.

To me, the puzzle of Ronald Reagan is how a comparatively ordinary man, someone with not extraordinary talent, accomplished such extraordinary results. At the age of 50, no one expected that this was going to be the guy who would become, at least in my interpretation, one of the two most important presidents of the 20th century.

It is hard to argue that the conservative movement is not having success.

If you're intimate with a mind as powerful as that of Ellen Willis, it takes you a long time to separate yourself from her ideas. She had an extremely powerful mind.

If the Arab world today looked like Tunisia, it would be a huge blow for the extreme ideologies. But Tunisia needs more support than it is getting, particularly from their close neighbors in Europe who have a great stake in North Africa.

Ideas are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Madmen in authority who hear voices in the air are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribblers of a few years back. Sooner or later, it is ideas, rather than vested interests, which are dangerous for good or for evil.

The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.

Minor parties have been attached to some special idea or interest, and they have generally expressed their positions through firm and identifiable programs and principles. Their function has not been to win or govern, but to agitate, educate, generate new ideas, and supply the dynamic element in our political life. When a third party's demands become popular enough, they are appropriated by one or both of the major parties and the third party disappears. Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.