Compassionate Conservatism Quotes

The time has passed in America when this party can be the party of compassion and let the executive branch run foreign policy. It won't work. We have to be the party that can stand toe to toe with George W. Bush on national security, as well as the party of compassion.

Conservatives are not our enemies. They are our neighbors.

A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society.

A liberal is someone who throws a drowning man 50 feet from the shore a 30 foot rope and says, "I've met you more than halfway.

I think I'm basically a liberal Conservative - I believe in low tax, spirit of free enterprise, and in making sure that we as politicians create the framework for business to produce the dosh that we're going to need to pay for the poorest. And the longer I live, the more I think that we all have a duty to each other.

Republicans rarely criticize Obama for lack of empathy - in part because liberals have traditionally been seen as standing up for the weak and the vulnerable. Conservatives can be just as empathetic. But they believe that, in most cases, it's not government's role to be the primary dispenser of empathy.

I think Governor Romney cares about all the American people.

In many ways, Nixon started the modern notion of 'compassionate conservatism,' which as we all know is neither 'compassionate' nor 'conservative.'

Thanks to former President George W. Bush - remember the compassionate conservative? - I have a good name for the fundamental principle that should guide the Democratic alternative: compassionate deficit reduction.

The Democrats have invested a lot of time in telling struggling Americans that Republicans or anyone who doesn't agree with their agenda doesn't care about people who are struggling.

Compassionate conservative, that's like having a gun rack on a Volvo.

I met the president when he was president-elect at a meeting in Austin. He spoke of his faith. He spoke of his desire for a compassionate conservatism, for a faith-based initiative that would do something for poor people.

It's not that conservatives don't care. We do. We just have different answers than liberals do. It's a difference of the mind, not of the heart.

They plan to ride into the White House on the Sweet Talk Express. Well, think again. Bush and Cheney are not compassionate conservatives. They are ruthless reactionaries.

Being a fiscal conservative is not about slashing programs that help the poor, or improve health care, or ensure a social safety net. It's about insisting services are provided efficiently, get to only the people that need them, and achieve the desired results. Fiscal conservatives have hearts too — but we also insist on using our brains, and that means demanding results and holding government accountable for producing them

Although Ronald Reagan was somebody I disagreed with on most ideological things, he was a friend of mine, and he was a very, very likable man. Ronald Reagan, for instance, was maybe more able to get the very rich to do the right thing sometimes.

I'm definitely a Tory. My dad was a Conservative councillor, and I spent years as a child knocking on doors with him. I'm a Tory because I'm passionate about business and enterprise. But I am also a compassionate Conservative. There should always be a net through which no one should fall.

I am a conservative. I have said I don't know how many times, conservatism is an intellectual pursuit. And by that I mean liberalism's easy. Liberalism is the most gutless, easy choice. It's not even a choice. Liberalism is just, you feel it. And there's nothing hard about it at all. You don't even have to do anything. You just have to notice suffering and talk about how it. And you're a great, big-hearted, compassionate person.

Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.

In their zeal to show compassion, liberal community activists are quick to offer government handouts and, in the process, convey the message that people are incapable of making it on their own.

The definition of a Schwarzenegger Republican is a Bush Republican who says he's a Schwarzenegger Republican.

I think I can do more inside the Republican Party to keep it in the center of the road. That's where Eisenhower was. And I'm an unabashed Eisenhower Republican.

Clinton's successor in the White House, George W. Bush, was committed to expanding government spending for faith-based initiatives.

Some might think that George W. Bush had his shortcomings, but let me tell you something - history's going to be kind to George W. Bush.