Michael O'Rielly Quotes

Conservatism is not about the party, because the party is merely the shell. It is the inside - it's the filling that really means something.

I am a Republican because of my military background, my pro-life beliefs, my support for the Second Amendment, and my belief that government should not grow excessively.

I think that, especially among conservatives, there's a clear understanding that there are three legs to the conservative stool. There are the free-market economics conservatives, the social conservatives, and the national-security conservatives.

I believe in what I believe, and I think after all these years I've heard a lot of arguments, and I'm convinced by the superiority of the arguments that are made on the conservative side. I think that's a better way to run a society.

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.

I've always been a conservative first.

I've been a conservative my whole life. There is nothing hard-right or far-right about anything. I just believe in ideas and that ideas matter in history, and that's my background, and that's the way I'd like to be portrayed.

I'm conservative in my thought. I'm conservative in my theology. I'm conservative in my politics.

I'm a conservative - a practicing one. I'm not a talk-about-it one.

I'm an ultra-conservative.

Myself, I'm a post-ideological conservative.

Conservative politics are not an a la carte menu.

The Republicans in America are better for us. They are more consistent and predictable than the Democrats.

We should not just talk about conservative principles, but we should actually advance them.

I'm trying to uphold what was true about conservatism. I consider myself a Reagan conservative.

I believe in a core set of fundamental Republican values.

I believe I was sent to Washington to fight for and defend our traditional values of smaller government, lower taxes, a strong national defense, and the lives of the unborn.

We have to have somebody that will express conservative views, of course, and I'm looking for somebody that is very Reaganesque. Someone that can reach all aspects of our voting population here in America.

I put my conservatism up against anyone. I'm a pretty staunch conservative, with pretty rabid ideas about conservative values... Questioning my conservatism doesn't seem like a particularly interesting project or exercise.

Romney has adopted almost every position conservatives want their candidate to espouse: He's pro-life, he wants to repeal ObamaCare, he wants to cut taxes and cut the federal budget, and he wants an unapologetic foreign policy dedicated to the proposition that this too will be the American century.

For me, I think being a conservative means you are focused on all four key principles: strong defense, lower taxes, less spending, and defending traditional American values.

Very simply, I was the original conservative.

I'm an independent conservative. And what I mean by that - when I think we're right, I'm with us all the way, and I am a conservative. And I think my record reflects that.

The point of conservatism is not that it prevents movement forward and upward, but that it prevents movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state.

The conservative idea is not that government has no role. You might have argued that in the thirties when conservatives opposed the New Deal.