Paul Leslie Quotes

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence; Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted — in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest — at the command — of his head.

What if you are a conservative in a liberal environment? Then what you are conserving is liberalism.

In every society liberals are not very popular. Liberalism is not a populist movement.

What makes Progressives is their confidence in Progress.

Liberals stand for tolerance, magnanimity, community spirit, the defense of the weak against the powerful, love of learning, freedom of belief, art and poetry, city life, the very things that make life worth dying for. Conservatives stand for tax cuts … and use of the tax refund to buy a gun and an attack dog to take with you when you drive your all-terrain vehicle through the barriers of Republicanville.

How did the progressive Republican Party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Eisenhower become the reactionary party of Ronald Reagan, the tea party and Paul Ryan? There is nothing random about these ideological shifts. They reflect the party’s — and the nation’s — central unresolved problem: the tension between equality of opportunity and protection of private property.

The history of the Republican Party shows why, since the Civil War, the nation has been caught in cycles of progressivism and reaction.

I don't accept 'political rapper' because I don't give a damn about either political party. I give a damn about the people. My rap comes from a sociological standpoint rather than picking a particular side or dogma or ideology. I just want people to be free to do what they want, as long as they don't harm others.

I am still puzzled why those in the United States who truly believe in liberty should not only have allowed the left to appropriate this almost indispensable term but should even have assisted by beginning to use it themselves as a term of opprobrium. This seems to be particularly regrettable because of the consequent tendency of many true liberals to describe themselves as conservatives.

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.

My mother, for the last 20 years anyway, would not call herself a Marxist but a human rights activist.

A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

I've always been very interested in the struggle for human rights, not just here but abroad, and I wanted to be an inside player in that struggle. I wanted to make the laws reflect our ideals and ideas in this democracy that is America.

Nanny states are interested in social order. Daddy states are interested in public order.

…liberals have traditionally distinguished themselves from conservatives by insisting that to promote liberty, America must promote opportunity as well.

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them.... In every country these two parties exist.... Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same party still and pursue the same object.

To affirm my own rights I must define and affirm the rights of others.

I'm a liberal when it comes to human rights, the poor; so's George W. Bush.... But liberal and conservative don't mean much to me anymore. Does that mean we care about people and are interested and want to help? And if that makes you a liberal, so be it.

A liberal is a conservative who's been indicted.

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

In truth, the parties of Whig [Liberal] and Tory [Conservative] are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles, and Liberals.

Everybody in Mariposa is neither liberal or conservative or else is both.

The law expresses the values and aspirations of our society.