“The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)
“Is not every man sometimes a radical in politics? 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.”
1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), New England Reformers
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Ralph Waldo Emerson727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882Related quotes
“When you are right, you cannot be too radical; When you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Why We Can't Wait (1964)
Context: Someone once wrote: "When you are right, you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative." The Negro knows he is right.
“The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.”
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist
The New Yorker (12 September 1970).
“The most conservative man in the world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) British labour leader, politician, and statesman
Report of the Proceedings of the Trade Union Congress, 1927
Speech to the TUC General Council, 8 September 1927.
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)
Speech in New York City http://books.google.com/books?id=Bc7iAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;Generally+young+men+are+regarded+as+radicals+This+is+a+popular+misconception+The+most+conservative+persons+I+ever+met+are+college+undergraduates&quot;+&quot;the+radicals&quot;+&quot;are+the+men+past+middle+life&quot;, (19 Nov 1905), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson 16:228 <br class="br">1900s
“When a nation’s young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.”
Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)
Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst
Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
“Conservative: One who admires radicals a century after they're dead.”
Leo Rosten (1908–1997) American writer
As quoted in The Modern Handbook of Humor (1967) by Ralph Louis Woods
Variants:
A conservative is someone who admires radicals a century after they're dead.
A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.
Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist
Source: Talking About a Revolution: Interviews with Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, bell hooks, Peter Kwong, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Urvashi Vaid, and Howard Zinn