Jesse Helms Quotes

There are 100 different doors to come into the conservative movement. You can disagree with 99 of them, as long as you agree on one: more-limited government.

No matter what the issue is, conservative principles are always better for people than big-government, liberal principles.

Folks know that while I respect Barack Obama and do not cheap-shot the president, I am very skeptical of his big government, nanny-state philosophy.

The conservative movement today is like that tall ship with its proud captain: strong, accomplished but veering off course into the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government republicanism.

Big-government proponents embrace both the power of the federal government and the idea that millions of Americans ought to be dependent on its largesse. It's time to return to our Founders' love for small government. More is not always better.

I stand for limited government, fiscal responsibility, personal freedom, personal responsibility, so the Republican Party will support me.

I'm a conservative because I believe we're here on this earth to do a little more than crawl through life, comfortable in the cradle of government excess and oblivious to the duties required to keep this republic standing.

I became a Republican because I trust people more than I trust government.

In the book I define conservatism, as I believe it is fit upon four categories of principle: respect for The Constitution, respect for life, less government, and personal responsibility.

Good for you, you have a heart, you can be a liberal. Now, couple your heart with your brain, and you can be a conservative.

The Tea Party claims to want small government.

The Tea Party is simply a loose description of local activism driven by Americans who want smaller government and more self-reliance. That sounds like what the Founding Fathers had in mind, does it not?

As conservatives, we know our principles, and we also know the best ideas do not always come from Washington.

At home, we must reject the mistaken notion - a notion that has dominated too much of the public dialogue for too long - that ever bigger Government is the answer to every problem.

I want the American people to understand that conservatism is an ideology of protecting the people and the people's rights.

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.

The conservative movement is about government playing its important yet limited role, and about not falling into the trap of believing that every problem has an exclusive government answer for it.

So the majority of Americans are conservatives. They believe in things like the Constitution. I know that's weird to some people but they believe in it.

At its core, conservatism is not an anti-government movement, and it's not a no-government movement.

America needs a strong, rational, positive, practical conservative movement. It needs that bulwark against liberal delusion and hubris. It needs a voice that says we are imperfect, that life is complex, that government can create need even as it meets need, that you can't fix everything, and freedom is worth some danger and sorrow.

I realized that conservatism was the philosophy that best suited me, with its emphasis on individual liberty, personal responsibility, and merit.

I think it's very clear that the American people are frustrated with this move toward socialism. And so whether you're back or white, if you believe that the conservative construct is in the best interest of our future, than you too would be voting with Republicans, and if you had the opportunity to run you'd join us as well.

The Tea Party and the like are about what we can't do, instead of the American ideal of what we can.

The liberals think government exists to fix what's wrong with America. They find fault with our Constitution, our economic model and our core values. We disagree with the premise of their argument. We believe there's nothing wrong with America that an extra dose of freedom won't cure.

You know, conservatism is not a bad thing. It's not a pejorative.