“Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”
— Ambrose Bierce

“A conservative is a fellow who thinks a rich man should have a square deal.”
— Frank Dane

“What is conservatism? It is not adherence to the old and tried, but against the new and untried?”
— Abraham Lincoln

“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs, who has never learned to walk.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.”
— Mark Twain

“Modern conservatism honors a past that never existed, and ideas that were once radically liberal.”
— Stephen O’Toure

“Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged.
“In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.”
— Kin Hubbard

“To be conservative requires no brains whatsoever. Cabbages, cows and conifers are conservatives, and are so stupid they don’t even know it. All that is basically required is acceptance of what exists.”
— Colin Welch

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”
— John Stuart Mill

“When a nation’s young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.”
— Henry Ward Beecher

“The values to which the conservative appeals are inevitably caricatured by the individuals designated to put them into practice.”
— Harold Rosenberg

“It is fascinating that most white death row inmates in America describe themselves as politically conservative.”
— Richard Sherricky

“Modern conservatives are addicted to the power of money and believe privately-held wealth cures all problems. Well, until they have no money, and then they are at the head of the line demanding liberals save them from their ugly inhumane ideology.”
— Maureen Welles

“A conservative sees a man drowning 50-feet from shore, throws him a 25-foot long rope, and tells him to swim to it. A liberal throws him a rope 50-feet long, then drops his end and goes off to perform another good deed.”
— Author Unknown

“The conservative smugly delights in ridiculing liberals who seek to bring about a fairer, more equal existence for all the populace, yet you can’t base a sane, just and democratic nation on any other precept.”
— Harriet Ochs

“Every civilization has died at last not of the excesses of honest and open liberalism, but from the deceptions of jingoistic and corrupt conservatism.”
— Carleton Quinn