The Dictionary of Conservative Quotations E-Book

Iain Dale

• Herausgeber: Biteback Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 451

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

You'll need this thoughtful and entertaining assembly of conservative quotations if you're at all keen on politics. With more than 2,000 key quotes, this authoritative collection contains all the best conservatives and their sayings, whether they were standing up for what's right or standing up to the left, showing off their wit or showing that their foes were witless. It's got all the big names: everyone from Aquinas to Bagehot, Churchill to Cameron, Shakespeare to Thatcher. In The Dictionary of Conservative Quotations you'll find humour (Quayle) and inspiration (Burke), political punches (Hague) and ancient wisdom (Aristotle), all wrapped up into one slick, easy-to-use compendium. This book makes a vital reference source for anyone who cares for politics or the Conservatives and is a must-have for everyone with an interest in conservative thought.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title PageForewordIntroductionABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTVWYIndexAlso available from Biteback PublishingCopyright

Foreword

by the Rt Hon. William Hague

When Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli commented that, ‘The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations,’ he was, more than likely, envisaging a collection selected from his own prodigious output. It is true, however, that dictionaries of historical quotations are an ideal way to discover the personalities which have dominated our political landscape, both past and present. To know that Burke is an important conservative thinker is not the same as understanding what he meant by saying: ‘Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.’

Quotations allow those of us who do not have time to pore over multiple learned tomes to access the thoughts of many brilliant, important, observant or just plain eccentric minds and to learn how the world looked through their eyes.

In the often frenzied environment that the modern politician inhabits, crammed with back-to-back appointments and three-minute interviews, it is hard to remember that words are never entirely spontaneous or disposable. Like particles of pure energy, words assume many different forms and can be turned to suit any purpose the moment demands, yet, as a consequence of being drawn on time and again, they accumulate their own histories and a wide range of meanings.

A word like ‘conservative’ has been around long enough for people to understand very different things by it – just ask Edward Heath or Margaret Thatcher! Occasionally, famous quotations will be rewarded by inclusion in popular idiom. Harold Macmillan’s comment about the ‘wind of change’ in South Africa is an obvious example. Most political words will, it is true, be quickly forgotten but all remain available to be excavated and rediscovered by future generations. Dictionaries of quotations are, in many respects, exercises in political archaeology.

What is particularly pleasing to me about a specialist Conservative dictionary of quotations is how it illustrates the breadth and depth of conservatism as a political tradition. Indeed, it has a proud pedigree, counting among its numbers thinkers of the calibre of John Locke, Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott; great wartime leaders, including Pitt the Younger and Winston Churchill; radical economic reformers like Robert Peel and Margaret Thatcher, and oratorical geniuses such as the Elder Pitt and Ronald Reagan. Less eminent, although no less conservative, are colourful characters like Edwina Currie, the might-have-beens like Barry Goldwater, or the forgotten – who can recall the key events of Henry Addington’s premiership? Finally, there are those, like Alan Clark, whose wit can be savage but who can make us laugh.

What, if anything, do these conservative figures have in common? In consulting quotations from Aristotle (we claim him!) to Margaret Thatcher, from Abraham Lincoln to Karl Popper, certain themes recur: a suspicion of state intervention; an admiration for the traditional institutions of social and political life and a belief in the virtue of individual liberty – so far as it does not undermine these institutions. The pleasure of a book such as this lies in exploring the diversity of ways in which Conservatives have thought about these and a vast array of other questions. I certainly do not agree with all of the quotations in this book. Some, such as Abraham Lincoln’s views on race before he became President, make for quite difficult reading. Conservatives, unfortunately, are no different from other kinds of people in falling prey to the prejudices of the day. They are perhaps a little better than some at maintaining a healthy scepticism towards passing political fads.

Any political organisation as old as the Conservative Party inevitably has its historical fault lines. The modern party which, to use John Major’s words, believes in a ‘classless society’, was once led by Lord Salisbury, to whom democracy meant ‘simple despotism’. Neither have Tories always been advocates of free trade, as Robert Peel learned to his cost.

Whatever the particular view expressed, I like to think that, on the whole, the quotations in this book show that conservatism is a political tradition alive with ideas and enriched by many thoughtful, intelligent and funny people. I can’t deny that sometimes they have got it wrong, but I still have no doubt in saying that were Disraeli alive today, he would amend one of his quotations to read: ‘The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by Conservative quotations!’

William Hague

Leader of the Conservative Party 1997–2001, Foreign Secretary 2010–

Introduction

by Iain Dale

This book has been an absolute pleasure to compile. One cannot fail to learn from the words of wisdom or fail to be amused, entertained or informed. But the trouble with compiling a book of quotations is that one inevitably leaves out some obvious favourites. I am sure I have been guilty of that in this volume. Quotations have fascinated me all my adult life. Whether writing articles or making speeches they are invaluable for politicians of every hue.

I have purposely omitted quotes by non-conservative politicians on their criticism or definition of Conservatism. If you have enjoyed this volume but know of quotations you think should have been included, please feel free to get in touch by email – [email protected] – as we intend to publish new editions of this book in the future.

The quotes have been selected according to a number of criteria but, as with all books of quotations, the selection is somewhat coloured by my own choices. Where possible I have included the subject’s biographical details. Please forgive any omissions or feel free to send me corrections. It has not been possible to source every quote, but in my view it is better to include a good quote than exclude it purely on the basis of lack of provenance. No doubt some quotations may have been attributed wrongly or have been printed in a slightly different form to the original. No doubt readers may puzzle over the exclusion of a particular favourite quotation. Please feel free to write to me with any corrections or suggestions for a new edition.

I would like to acknowledge other volumes of quotations which have been especially helpful in compiling this book. They include the Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, Right Thinking by Edward Leigh, Andrew Roth’s Parliamentary Profiles, Scorn and Read My Lips by Matthew Parris among others.

The eagle-eyed reader might spot that I have drawn heavily from my previous book, The Margaret Thatcher Book of Quotations, published by Biteback in 2012. I make no apology for the fact that there are a large number of quotes from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. These two politicians shaped the world we live in today, no matter how much others might decry the fact. The world is a safer place and a more prosperous place thanks to them and let us never forget it.

Lastly, I would like to thank Grant Tucker, my executive assistant, for his assistance and enthusiasm in tracking down some elusive quotes. Grant is a mere twenty years old and was born two years after Margaret Thatcher fell from power, yet he seems to know more about her life and achievements than I do. Grant is living proof that Margaret Thatcher’s legacy will be handed down through the generations.

Iain Dale

August 2013

A

Earl of Aberdeen

1784–1860; Prime Minister 1852–55

I consider war to be the greatest folly, if not the greatest crime, of which a country could be guilty, if lightly entered into. If a proof were wanted of the deep and thorough corruption of human nature, we should find it in the fact that war itself was sometimes justifiable.

Speech in the House of Lords, 4 April 1845

I think it clear that all government in these times must be a government of progress, Conservative progress, if you please; but we can no more be stationary, than reactionary.

Letter to Henry Goulburn, 2 September 1852

As we are drifting fast towards war, I should think the Cabinet ought to see where they are going.

Letter to the Earl of Clarendon on the Crimean War, 7 June 1853

Lord Acton

1834–1902; historian

Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.

The Home and Foreign Review, 1862

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

Ibid.

Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion.

Nationality (1862)

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1881

The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.

Ibid.

Power, like a desolating pestilence

Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,

Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,

Makes slaves of men and of the human frame

A mechanised automation,

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power absolutely.

1887

Great men are almost always bad men even when they exercise influence and not authority.

Ibid.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

History of Freedom & Other Essays (1907)

Liberty is not the means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

Ibid.

The great question is to discover, not what governments prescribe, but what they ought to prescribe; for no prescription is valid against the conscience of mankind. Before God, there is neither Greek nor Barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of that universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God. The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to who we are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.

Ibid.

John Adams

1735–1826; US President 1796–1800

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.

An Essay on the Canon and the Feudal Law (1765)

The jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking and writing.

Ibid.

I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all.

1776

The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, so that it may be a check against both, so that it may be a check upon both.

Thoughts On Government (1776)

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

1776

The happiness of society is the end of government.

Ibid.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.

1814

Phelps Adams

1903–91; American journalist

Capitalism and Communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The Communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: No man should have so much. The Capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: All men should have as much.

On capitalism

Samuel Adams

1722–1803; leader in the American Revolution

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Attributed

Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us by the former, for the sake of the latter.

1771

We cannot make events. Our business is wisely to improve them. Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason. Events which excite those feelings will produce wonderful effects.

Letter to Samuel Cooper, April 1776

Lord Addington

1757–1844; Prime Minister 1801–04

In youth the absence of pleasure is pain. In old age the absence of pain is pleasure.

On growing old

The burden [of income tax] should not be left to rest on the shoulders of the public in time of peace because it should be reserved for the important occasions which, I trust, will not soon recur.

Address to House of Commons, on abolition of income tax

Konrad Adenauer

1876–1967; German Chancellor 1949–63

A thick skin is a gift from God.

New York Times, 1959

Aeschylus

c.525–c.455 BC; playwright

Every ruler is harsh whose rule is new.

Prometheus Bound

Aesop

c.6th–5th century BC; fabulist

United we stand, divided we fall.

The Four Oxen and the Lion

Little by little does the trick.

The Crow and the Pitcher

It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

The Fox and the Grapes

Be content with your lot, one cannot be first in everything.

The Peacock and Juno

Spiro Agnew

1918–96; US Vice-President 1969–73

If you’ve seen one city slum, you’ve seen ’em all.

Detroit, 1968

A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by the effete corps of impudent snobs, who characterise themselves as intellectuals.

New Orleans, 1969

Yippies, hippies, yahoos, Black Panthers, lions and tigers alike – I’d swap the whole damn zoo for the kind of young Americans I saw in Vietnam.

On patriotism

Jonathan Aitken

b. 1942; Conservative MP 1974–97

I wouldn’t say she was open-minded on the Middle East so much as empty-headed. For instance, she probably thinks that Sinai is the plural of sinus.

On Margaret Thatcher’s views on the Middle East

Hervey Allen

1889–1949; American author

Every new generation is a fresh invasion of savages.

On civilisation

William Barclay Allen

b. 1944; Afro-American political scientist

This is a way of proceeding our country which leads to disaster … People are in the habit of thinking in terms of race, or gender – anything except of being an American. Until we learn once again to use the language of American freedom in an appropriate way that embraces all of us, we’re going to continue to harm this country.

Attributed

It is misleading to call affirmative action reverse discrimination, as we often do. There is no such thing, any more than the opposite of injustice, for example is reverse injustice.

American Enterprise Institute, 1985

James Madison thought that the most important test of American freedom would be the ability of our political system to guarantee the rights of minorities without exceptional provisions for their protection. Affirmative action is incompatible with that constitutional design. Whoever calls for affirmative action declares at the same time that constitutional design has failed and that we can no longer live with our constitution.

Ibid.

Leo Amery

1873–1955; Conservative MP 1911–45

For twenty years he has held a season ticket on the line of least resistance, and has gone wherever the train of events has carried him, lucidly justifying his position at whatever point he has happened to find himself.

On H. H. Asquith, speech in the House of Commons, 1916

Speak for England, Arthur!

To Arthur Greenwood in the House of Commons, 2 September 1939

You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go!

To Neville Chamberlain, quoting Cromwell, 7 May 1940

Conservatism recognises that individual effort, the individual desire to excel, the will for individual achievement and recognition will always remain the indispensable vitamins of human society. But the individuals it has in mind are also citizens. The qualities of cooperation, of public duty, of willingness to sacrifice personal interest and even life itself for the common cause are essential elements in the individuality we would strive to foster.

The Ashridge Journal, 1943

David Amess

b. 1952; Conservative MP 1983–

I am interested in everything and expert in nothing.

Attributed

I do not believe in the equality of men and women … If I were pressed I would say that women are superior to men.

Attributed

I would pull the lever.

On hanging

Michael Ancram

b. 1945; Conservative MP 1974, 1979–87, 1992–2010

You can vote for Blair or you can vote for Britain. You can’t do both.

June 2001

Thomas Aquinas

1227–74; theologian

Because the aim of a good life on this earth is blessedness in heaven, it is the king’s duty to promote the welfare of the community.

De Regno (c.1267)

Reason in man is rather like God in the world.

Opuscule II, De Regno (c.1267)

Jeffrey Archer

b. 1940; Conservative MP 1970–74

She’ll be Prime Minister until the middle of next century.

On Margaret Thatcher, 1989

Hannah Arendt

1906–75; American philosopher

The most radical revolutionary will become a Conservative on the day after the revolution.

On Revolution (1963)

The Third World is not a reality, but an ideology.

On the developing world

Aristophanes

c.450–385 BC; Greek dramatist

A horrible voice, bad breath and a vulgar manner – the characteristics of a popular politician.

On politics

Aristotle

384–322 BC; Greek philosopher

Democracy arose from men’s thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal absolutely.

Politics (c.335–323 BC)

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

Ibid.

Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.

Ibid.

Sometimes the demagogues, in order to curry favour with the people, wrong the notables.

Ibid.

Even when laws have been written down they ought not always to remain unaltered. But the law has no power to command obedience except that of habit which can only be given by time, so that a readiness to change from the old to new laws enfeebles the power of the law.

Ibid.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control and outnumbers both of the other classes.

Ibid.

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

Ibid.

… he who is unable to live in society, or has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must either be a beast or a god.

Ibid.

The male is by nature superior and the female inferior; one rules and the other is ruled.

Ibid.

Democracy [as literal majority rule] … arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Ibid.

We make war that we may live in peace.

Nicomachean Ethics (c.350 BC)

Virtue, like art, constantly deals with what is hard to do, and the harder the task the better the success.

Ibid.

No tyrant need fear ’til men begin to feel confident in each other.

Ibid.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than by reverence, and to refrain from evil, rather because of the punishment that it brings, than because of its own foulness.

Ibid.

It is best that laws should be so constructed as to leave as little as possible to the decision of those who judge.

Rhetoric (c.350 BC)

Dick Armey

b. 1940; US Congressman 1985–2003, House majority leader 1999–2003

Governments punish success and reward failure.

Know that euphemisms for restricting trade are created by those who benefit from restrictions.

February 1993

Be sceptical of gloomy prognostications from people who are in the business of peddling more government.

Ibid.

Mathew Arnold

1822–88; poet and educationalist

The world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things

Fullness of life and power of feeling, ye

Are for the happy, for the soul at ease,

Who dwell on a firm basis of content!

But he, who has outlived his prosperous days –

But he, whose youth fell on a different world

From that on which his exiled age is thrown –

Whose mind was fed on other food, was train’d

By other rules than are in vogue today –

Whose habit of thought is fixed, who will not change,

But, in a world he loves not, must subsist

In ceaseless opposition, be the guard

Of his own breast, fettered to what he guards,

That the world win no mastery over him –

From Empedocles on Etna (1852)

… what a man seeks through his education is to get to know himself and the world.

A speech at Eton

Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron

1905–83; French philosopher

The intellectual who no longer feels attached to anything is not satisfied with opinions merely; he wants certainty, he wants a system. The Revolution provides him with his opium.

The Opium of the Intellectuals (1995)

Communist faith justifies the means. Communist faith forbids the fact that there are many roads towards the Kingdom of God.

Ibid.

Far from being the … philosophy of the Proletariat, Communism merely makes use of … pseudo-science in order to attain its own end, the seizure of power.

Ibid.

Nancy Astor

1879–1964; Conservative MP 1919–45

Astor: Winston, if I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee.

Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband I would drink it.

At Blenheim Palace, 1912

Nobody wants me as a Cabinet minister and they are perfectly right. I am an agitator, not an administrator.

Attributed

Sir Humphrey Atkins

1922–96; Conservative MP 1955–87

Jim Prior is his own man. We all are.

On Prior’s resignation as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 1984

B

Sir Francis Bacon

1561–1626; lawyer and essayist

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things – old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.

Apothegus (1624)

In government, change is suspected through to the better. The best governments are always subject to be like the fairest crystals, where every icicle and grain is seen, which in a fouler stone is never perceived.

To worship the people is to be worshipped.

Nay, the number of armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.

Essays (1625)

There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous, a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.

Attributed

New nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time.

Of Nobility (1625)

It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty.

Of Great Place (1625)

Walter Bagehot

1826–77; essayist

In such constitutions [as England’s] there are two parts. First, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population – the dignified parts. And next, the efficient parts – those by which it, in fact, works and rules.

The English Constitution (1867)

It has been said that England invented the phrase ‘Her Majesty’s Opposition’; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequence of Cabinet government.

Ibid.

The natural impulse of the English people is to resist authority.

Ibid.

An opposition, on coming to power, is often like a speculate merchant whose bills become due. Ministers have to make good their promises, and they find difficulty in doing so.

Ibid.

It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say that they are governed by the weaknesses of their imaginations.

Ibid.

The finest brute votes in Europe.

Ibid.

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinion and uncommon abilities.

National Review, 1856

The most influential of constitutional statesmen is the one who most felicitously expresses the creed of the moment, who administers it, who embodies it in laws and institutions, who gives it the highest life it is capable of, who induces the average man to think: I could not have done it any better if I had had time myself.

Ibid.

The cure for admiring the Lords is to go and look at it.

Attributed

No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.

‘The First Edinburgh Reviewers’ (1855)

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

Physics & Politics (1869)

The electorate is the jury writ large.

Parliamentary Reform (1883)

Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one. In particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, and indication of its success.

1856

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

The Economist, 1863

The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understands it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.

The English Constitution (1872)

In happy states, the Conservative Party must rule upon the whole a much longer time than their adversaries. In wellframed politics, innovation – great innovation that is – can only be occasional. If you are always altering your house, it is a sign either that you have a bad house, or that you have an excessively restless disposition – there is something wrong somewhere.

1874

Kenneth Baker

b. 1934; Conservative MP 1968–97, Cabinet minister 1985–92

Crime is always on the news. Crime prevention doesn’t feature so often in the headlines but in the last ten years, and in the last five particularly, we have put crime prevention on the agenda for every police force, every local authority, every housing association, every car manufacturer and insurer, and on the personal agenda of many millions of ordinary people.

As Home Secretary, 1991

No Conservative government has ever accepted that parts of our inner cities might become no-go areas for the rule of law.

Ibid.

It’s no use peddling the idea that unemployment and crime are the government’s fault and opportunities are restricted by, for instance, lack of child care or racism. I see the growth of a so-called underclass as the most formidable challenge to a secure and civilised way of life throughout the developed world.

As Home Secretary, 1992

Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless.

Cited in The Observer, 13 July 1986

We have so reduced the power of the courts to lock up children – for basically good reasons – we now have a handful of young people we cannot really cope with.

As Home Secretary, 1993

Mrs Thatcher categorised her ministers into those she could put down, those she could break down and those she could wear down.

The Independent, 11 September 1993

Was I ever one of us?

To Charles Powell, BBC TV, September 1993

Stanley Baldwin

1867–1947; Prime Minister 1923, 1924–29, 1935–37

A lot of hard-faced men who look as if they had done very well out of the war.

Referring to the first House of Commons elected after the First World War

Four words, of one syllable each, are words which contain salvation for this country, and for the whole world. They are ‘faith’, ‘hope’, ‘love’ and ‘work’.

Speech in the House of Commons, 16 February 1923

A platitude is simply a truth repeated until people get tired of hearing it.

29 May 1924

There are three classes which need sanctuary more than others – birds, wild flowers and Prime Ministers.

The Observer, 24 May 1925

Safety First does not mean a smug self-satisfaction with everything as it is. It is a warning to all persons who are going to cross a road in dangerous circumstances.

1929

Had the employers of past generations all of them dealt fairly with their men there would have been no unions.

1931

There are three groups that no British Prime Minister should provoke: the Vatican, the Treasury and the miners.

Attributed

I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through … The only defence is offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.

10 November 1932

Let us never forget this; since the day of the air, the old frontiers are gone. When you think of the defence of England you no longer think of the chalk cliffs of Dover, you think of the Rhine.

30 July 1934

He spent his whole life in plastering together the true and the false and therefrom manufacturing the plausible.

On Lloyd George

I give you my word there will be no great armaments.

To the International Peace Society, 1935

If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister.

On the main reason for excluding Winston Churchill from his Cabinet, November 1935

You will find in politics that you are much exposed to the attribution of false motive. Never complain and never explain.

Quoted by Harold Nicolson

The intelligent are to the intelligentsia what a gentleman is to a gent.

Attributed

Arthur Balfour

1848–1930; Prime Minister 1902–05

Conservative prejudices are rooted in a great past and Liberal ones in an imaginary future.

Attributed

It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.

19 May 1891

I am a Conservative because I am absolutely certain that no community in this world has ever flourished, or could ever flourish, if it was faithless to its own past.

Attributed

The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which, for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish.

The Foundations of Belief (1895)

I thought he was a young man of promise but it turns out he was a young man of promises.

On Winston Churchill, 1899

World Crisis – Winston has written four volumes about himself and called it World Crisis.

Attributed

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

1927

I never forgive but I always forget.

Attributed

Douglas Bandow

b. 1954; aide to Ronald Reagan

… the most interesting form of welfare institution in the West, at least to those concerned about individual liberty and personal independence, is collective self-help, or mutual aid as it is more commonly called.

Welfare Reform has become a Forgotten Issue, 1992

Claude Frederic Bastiat

1801–50; French statesman and economist

Try to imagine a regulation of labour imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of property. If you cannot reconcile these contradictions, then you must conclude that the law cannot organise labour and industry without organising injustice.

The Law, 1850

Lord Beaverbrook

1879–1964; newspaper magnate and Conservative MP

Mr Baldwin, a well-meaning man of indifferent judgement who, whether he did right or wrong, was always sustained by a belief that he was acting for the best.

1931

His [Stanley Baldwin] successive attempts to find a policy remind me of a chorus of a third-rate review. His evasions reappear in different scenes and in new dresses, and every time they dance with renewed and despairing vigour. But it is the same old jig.

Attributed

He didn’t care in which direction the car was travelling, so long as he remained in the driver’s seat.

On Lloyd George

Daniel Bell

1919–2011; American sociologist

… equality of opportunity is a zero-sum game in which individuals can win in different ways. But equality of result, or redistributive polices, essentially is a zero-sum game, in which there are distinct losers and winners. And inevitably these conditions lead to more open political competition and conflict.

The Winding Passage (1980)

Distributive justice is one of the oldest and thorniest problems for political theory. What has been happening in recent years is that entitlement, equity, and equality have become confused with one another, and the source of rancorous political debate. Yet they are also the central value issues of the time.

Ibid.

William Bennett

b. 1943; American Republican politician

Discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional, inherently wrong and destructive of democratic society.

Counting by Race (1979)

It is bad enough that so much of what passes for art and entertainment these days is the rampant promiscuity and the casual cruelty of our popular culture. To ask us to pay for it is to add insult to injury. We will not be intimidated by our cultural guardians into accepting either the insult or the injury.

Speech to the Republican National Convention, 19 August 1992

It is hard to fight a war when you’ve got to debate the worthiness of fighting it.

CNN, 16 December 1989

If we believe that good art, good music and good books will elevate taste and improve the sensibilities of the young – which they most certainly do – then we must also believe that bad music and bad books will degrade. As a society, as communities, as policy makers, we must come to grips with the truth.

The Devaluing of America (1992)

Conservatism as I understand it is not essentially theoretical or ideological, but is rather a practical matter of experience. It seeks to conserve the best elements of the past.

Ibid.

Conservatives are interested in pursuing policies that will better reinforce and encourage the best of our people’s common culture, habits and beliefs.

Ibid.

Conservatism … is based on the belief that the social order rests upon a moral base, and that what ties us together as a people … is in constant need of support.

Ibid.

The problem is that some people tend to regard anyone who would pronounce a definitive judgement as an unsophisticated Philistine or a closed-minded ‘elitist’ trying to impose his view on everybody else.

Ibid.

Arthur Benson

1862–1922; essayist, poet and author

Land of Hope and Glory, mother of the free,

How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?

Wider still and wider shall they bounds be set,

God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.

Land of Hope and Glory (1902)

Brigitte Berger

b. 1928; American sociologist

[T]he family, and specifically the bourgeois family, is the necessary social context for the emergence of autonomous individuals who are the empirical foundation of political democracy. This has been so historically. There is every reason to think that it continues to be so today.

The War Over the Family (1983)

No amount of legislation and court decisions can produce in the individual such basic moral ideas as the inviolability of human rights, the willing assent to legal norms, or the notion that contractual agreements must be respected.

Ibid.

Public policy with regard to the family should primarily be concerned with the family’s capacity to take care of its children, its sick and handicapped, and its aged. The basic principle here should be that, whenever possible, these needs are best taken care of within the family, any family … regardless of social or cultural type. This means that the overriding concern of public policy should be to provide support for the family to discharge these caring tasks, rather than to relieve the family of these tasks.

Ibid.

[I]f one wants to foster the bourgeois family, the best course to take is to give people freedom of choice. Most of them will choose bourgeois values and bourgeois lifestyles – especially people in the ‘targeted’ groups of the poor and disadvantaged.

Ibid.

Peter Berger

b. 1929; American political philosopher

Modern capitalism … has been a liberating force. The market in and of itself liberates people from the old confines of subsistence economies.

The Capitalist Revolution (1986)

Kapitalistische luft macht frei [the air of capitalism liberates]

Ibid., adaptation of traditional German adage ‘the city air liberates’

[The liberating qualities of capitalism] is the empirical justification of the ideological position that there is an intrinsic connection between the economic freedom and all other liberties … However, it does not follow from this that their liberating forces of capitalism are inevitable or irreversible.

Ibid.

Isaiah Berlin

1909–97; philosopher

Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.

Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)

The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor.

Four Essays on Liberty (1969)

The Bible

In the sweat of thy face shall thy cut bread.

Genesis 3:10

Eye for Eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Exodus 21:24

He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.

Exodus 23:20

Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause.

Exodus 23:12

Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.

Nehemiah

Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also.

Matthew 6:21

John Biffen

1930–2007; Conservative MP 1961–97, Cabinet minister

She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters.

On Margaret Thatcher, December 1990

He was the sewer and not the sewage.

On Bernard Ingham

John Biggs-Davison

1918–88; Conservative MP 1955–88

I have never conceived it my duty as a Member of Parliament to seek to amend the Ten Commandments.

November 1976

Nigel Birch

1906–81; Conservative MP 1945–70

My God, they’ve shot our fox!

On hearing of the Chancellor Hugh Dalton’s resignation in 1947

For the second time the Prime Minister has got rid of a Chancellor of the Exchequer who tried to get expenditure under control. Once is more than enough.

Following Macmillan’s replacement of Selwyn Lloyd with Reginald Maudling, 1963

Lord Birkenhead (F. E. Smith)

1872–1930; Conservative MP 1906–18, Cabinet minister 1915–23, 1924–28

Austen always played the game and always lost it.

On Austen Chamberlain

I think Baldwin has gone mad. He simply takes one jump in the dark; looks round; and then takes another.

1923

Otto von Bismarck

1815–98; German Chancellor

Politics is the art of the possible.

1867

The politician has not to revenge what has happened but to ensure that it does not happen again.

Ibid.

The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they’ll sleep at night.

Attributed

Politics is not an exact science.

Addressing the Prussian Parliament, 18 December 1863

Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong. It is a geographical concept.

1876

I have always found the word Europe on the lips of those politicians who wanted something from other Powers which they dared not demand in their own names.

1878

A lath of wood painted to look like iron.

On Lord Salisbury at the Congress of Berlin, 1878

The old Jew! That is the man.

On Disraeli, at the Congress of Berlin, 1878

If reactionary measures are to be carried, the Liberal Party takes the rudder, from the correct assumption that it will not overstep the necessary limits; if liberal measures are to be carried, the Conservative Party takes office in its turn for the same consideration.

Attributed

William Blackstone

1723–80; lawyer

And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated and attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence.

Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69)

That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.

Ibid.

The Royal Navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and armament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of our island.

Ibid.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent one suffer.

Ibid.

Lord (Robert) Blake

1916–2003; historian

It is too often said that Thatcherism is a departure from Conservative tradition. She proclaims herself to be radical. In one sense she is; but in another sense she is harking back to an older set of policies. After all, for most of the time since 1846 Conservatives have been in favour of low taxation, an enterprise culture, a stable currency, and minimal state intervention; and, apart from a curious aberration by Disraeli, have viewed what was quaintly called the trade union movement with a frosty eye.

The Times, 1989

Allan Bloom

1930–92; American political philosopher

Affirmative action now institutionalises the worst aspects of separatism.

On black militancy in American universities; The Closing of the American Mind (1987)

Democratic society cannot accept any principle of achievement other than merit.

Ibid.

David Boaz

b. 1953; libertarian

A key point to keep in mind is that non-government schools, which have to offer a better product to stay in business, do a better job of educating children.

Liberating Schools (1991)

Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke

1678–1751; High Tory

The constitution will be reverenced by him [the patriot king] as the law of God and of man; the force of which binds the king as much as the meanest subject, and the reason of which binds him much more.

‘The Idea of a Patriot King’, in The Works of the Late Right Honourable Henry St John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke

Napoleon Bonaparte

1769–1821; Emperor of France 1804–15

A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, effort and endeavours, can never take root.

1803

He who saves his country violates no law.

Maxims (1948)

My maxim was, la carrière est ouverte aux talents, without distinction of birth or fortune.

1817

Andrew Bonar Law

1858–1923; Prime Minister 1922–23

If, therefore, war should ever come between these two countries [Britain and Germany], which Heaven forbid! It will not, I think be due to irresistible natural laws, it will be due to want of human wisdom.

House of Commons, 27 November 1911

If I am a great man then a good many great men of history are frauds.

Letter to Max Aitken, 13 November 1911

A man with the vision of an eagle but with a blind spot in his eye.

On F. E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead, 1917

I am afraid I shall have to show myself very vicious, Mr Asquith, this session. I hope you will understand.

To Asquith at the beginning of the 1912 session of Parliament

They [the Liberal government] have turned the House of Commons into an exchange where everything is bought and sold. In order to retain for a little longer the ascendancy of their Party, to remain a few months longer in office, they have sold the Constitution, they have sold themselves.

Speech in Belfast

In war it is necessary not only to be active but to seem active.

1916

I must follow them. I am their leader.

Going along with backbench Tory MPs in the 1922 rebellion against a Conservative–Liberal coalition

Christopher Booker

b. 1937; journalist

In the life of any government, however safe its majority, there comes a moment when the social movements of which it had once been the expression, turn inexorably against it. After that moment, every mistake it makes becomes magnified; indeed blunders multiply as if feeding on themselves; and both outwardly and inwardly the government appears to be at the mercy of every wind.

The Neophiliacs (1969)

Our government has recently unleashed the greatest avalanche of regulations in peacetime history; and wherever we examine their working we see that they are using a sledgehammer to miss a nut.

1995

Daniel Boorstin

1914–2004; American historian

[W]e must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant. Unless we give up the voguish reverence for youth and for the ‘culturally deprived,’ unless we cease to look to the vulgar community as arbiters of our art and literature, and of all our culture, we will never have the will to deprovincialise our minds.

Democracy and its Discontents (1971)

Education is learning what you didn’t even know you knew.

Ibid.

We must recognise that many of the acts committed in the name of equal opportunity are in fact acts of discrimination.

Ibid.

We must not allow ourselves to become the Quota States of America.

Ibid., on the tendency for minority education agendas

Robert Bork

1927–2012; US judge

In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge.

American Enterprise Institute, 1977

Those who made and endorsed our Constitution knew man’s nature, and it is to their ideas rather than to the temptations of utopia, that we must ask that our judges adhere.

The Tempting of America (1990)

Peter Bottomley

b. 1944; Conservative MP 1975–

When [The IRA] plant such bombs, it proves they can scare people, it proves they can kill people, it proves nothing.

1990

Virginia Bottomley

b. 1948; Conservative MP 1984–2005, Cabinet minister 1992–97

Suicide is a real threat to health in a modern society.

As Health Secretary, 1993

Smoking is a dying habit.

Ibid.

Edward Boyle

1923–81; Conservative MP 1950–70

Nothing in politics is ever as good or bad as it first appears.

Quoted in The Whitelaw Memoirs (1989)

Rhodes Boyson

1925–2012; Conservative MP 1974–97

Politically there is no record of the continuance of political freedoms when economic freedoms have died.

Cited in Total Politics

The militants in Liverpool spend money as if it came from outer space.

1987

Lord Brabazon of Tara

b. 1946; Conservative MP 1984–2001, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport 1986–89, Minister of State (FCO) 1989–90, Minister of State for Transport 1990–92; Chairman of Committees 2002–12

Make no mistake about it, the repercussions of this new invention [television] are going to be … very wholesome because they tend to keep the home together … It does mean that people stay at home.

1950

Gyles Brandreth

b. 1948; Conservative MP 1992–97

At the House of Commons sword-fighting is strictly taboo. Back-stabbing, on the other hand, is quite a different matter.

Breaking the Code (2000)

In the Members’ Dining Room, the Conservatives eat at one end, the Labour Party at the other, while the Liberals wait at table.

Ibid.

Sir Leon Brittan

b. 1939; Conservative MP 1974–88; Cabinet minister 1983–86, European Commissioner 1988–99

The two offences of which people of all ages are most fearful are violent street crimes and burglary. Efforts against these two crimes must be targeted to make the best possible use of the available intelligence and skilled detective powers.

As Home Secretary, 1985

D. W. Brogan

1900–74; historian

Political corruption breeds infection. The best safeguard is the fresh air of publicity.

The Free State (1944)

Peter Brooke

b. 1934; Conservative MP 1977–2001, Cabinet minister, 1987–94

Clearly, the future is still to come.

1986

Lord Brookeborough

1888–1973; Member of Northern Ireland Parliament 1929–68, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland 1943–63

If it weren’t for these troubles, Ireland would be a very happy place.

As Ulster minister with special responsibility for tourism, 1970

Warren Brookes

1929–91; American journalist and economist

[T]he whole notion of using the tax system as a method of redistributing wealth rests on a fallacy – namely that wealth is money, and that all one has to do to transfer wealth is transfer money. The trouble with that hypothesis is that money is nothing more than a medium of exchange. Real wealth is the total productive output of the economy in the form of services and goods, which are in turn the products of the energy, resources and talents of the people who produce them. Thus merely passing money around does little to change a nation’s real productive output or wealth, nor does it change the inherent ‘wealth capacity’ of individual citizens. All it does is to reduce the real value of the money itself through inflation.

The Economy in Mind (1982)

The attempt to redistribute wealth by redistributing money through the progressive tax tables only winds up keeping the poor, the rich, and the middle classes struggling even harder to keep up with taxation.

Ibid.

In [America], it is still safe to say that 80–90 per cent of the new jobs and economic growth is contributed by the efforts, imagination, energy and initiative of less than 5–10 per cent of all individuals.

Ibid.

In the process [of wealth creation, the] top 5–10 per cent has become very rich, and not always very nice; but genius seldom seems to equate with meekness and charity.

Ibid.

… without those well-rewarded individuals who often have risked everything to create the one new enterprise in ten that succeeds, our economy would become stagnant and trickle-down would quickly be replaced by dole-out as it has in Poland, Russia, China, Cuba, or even England.

Ibid.

Inflation itself has its fundamental roots in the politics of envy.

Ibid.

Is it really any wonder that the money they print is green?

Ibid., on the use of inflationary measures to pay for wealth redistribution

Instead of genuine breakthroughs, we are seeing more and more in consumer products what we have seen on television shows: safe spin offs, frequent rip-offs, and modest variations on past success models.

Ibid., on the dangers of Corporations losing their entrepreneurial touch

Michael Brotherton

Conservative MP 1979–83

Social security scroungers should be made to give a pint of blood every six months.

1979

Lord Brougham

1778–1868; Lord Chancellor 1830–34

What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not valuable.

Edinburgh Review, 1880

Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.

Speech to the House of Commons, 29 January 1828

Andrew Brown

b. 1955; British journalist

Thatcherism is not an ideology, but a political style: a trick of presenting reasonable, rather pedestrian ideas in a way that drives reasonable men into a frothing rage.

The Spectator, 1984

Michael Brown

b. 1951; Conservative MP 1979–97, sketchwriter for The Independent 1998–

It was like losing my mother. My mother is still alive but one day she won’t be, and when that occurs it will, I suspect, be exactly like the day that Margaret Thatcher resigned.

Daily Telegraph, 25 October 1993

Angela Browning

1946; Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton 1992–2010, shadow Minister of State of Employment and Education 1997–98, shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1999–2000, shadow Leader of the House of Commons 2000–01, Minister for Crime Prevention and Anti-Social Behaviour Reduction 2011

The idea that there are women who run perfect homes and have delightful children who never get chicken pox without giving a month’s notice is unrealistic.

Attributed

Patrick Buchanan

b. 1938; American Republican politician

And from the ancient forests of Oregon, to the Inland Empire of California, America’s great middle class has got to start standing up to the environmental extremists who put insects, rats and birds ahead of families, workers and jobs.

Republican Convention speech, 17 August 1992

William Buckley Jr

1925–2008; American journalist

Knee-jerk liberals and all the certified saints of sanctified humanism are quick to condemn this great and much-maligned Transylvanian statesman.

On Vlad the Impaler

I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my political ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.

Up From Liberalism (1959)

The state is a divine institution. Without it we have anarchy, and the lawlessness of anarchy is counter to the national law; so we abjure all political theories which view the state as inherently and necessarily evil. But it is the state which has been in history the principal instrument of abuse of the people, and so it is central to the Conservative program to keep the state from accumulating any but the most necessary powers.

The Catholic World

What was wrong with Communism wasn’t aberrant leadership, it was Communism.

30 June 1995

Ivor Bulmer-Thomas

1905–93; Labour and Conservative MP

If he ever went to school without any boots it was because he was too big for them.

On Harold Wilson, Conservative Party Conference 1949

Julie Burchill

b. 1959; journalist

Despite the Right-On hysteria, Mrs Thatcher has never been an old-fashioned girl. Voting for her was like buying a Vera Lynn LP, getting it home and finding ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ inside the red white and blue sleeve … She basically doesn’t believe that sex is such a big deal; this is why she has proved such a disappointment to Whitehouse, Gillick, Anderton and the sperm-ridden minds of the Right who wanted moral rearmament and got a 2p in the pound tax cut instead.

From the article ‘Margaret Thatcher’

Mrs Thatcher is not trying to drag this country kicking and screaming into the nineteenth century. She’s a brutal futurist, a Conservative with no interest in conserving, especially ye olde England and its ye olde industries.

Ibid.

[Mrs Thatcher] is an internationalist – unlike Labour, who lash themselves into a sentimental tizzy every time Johnny Foreigner puts in a bid for a British sweet factory.

Ibid.

What people forget is that it was not easy, until very recently, being Margaret Thatcher. She is one of those strange socio-economic mutations, like Morrissey, who have nowhere to go but the top. She is the misfit who made it…

Ibid.

[Mrs Thatcher] has always had to take stick for being a woman; from the drunken Tory who asked her at a No. 10 luncheon while she was Edward Heath’s Education Minister if there was any truth in the rumour that she was a woman, to the caring, anti-sexist Labour Party and their Ditch the Bitch campaign of 1983. (How would they react to a black Conservative leader – Dump the Coon?)

Ibid.