“While the characters of men are forming, as is always the case in revolutions, there is a reciprocal suspicion, and a disposition to misinterpret each other; and even parties directly opposite in principle will sometimes concur in pushing forward the same movement with very different views, and with the hopes of its producing very different consequences. A great deal of this may be discovered in this embarrassed affair, and yet the issue of the whole was what nobody had in view.”

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

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Thomas Paine 262
English and American political activist 1737–1809

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“Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

Up from Liberalism (1959); also quoted in The American Dissent : A Decade of Modern Conservatism (1966) by Jeffrey Peter Hart, p. 171
Variants:
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 93
Liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, but it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.
As quoted in his obituary in The TImes (28 February 2008) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3447250.ece.

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Part II, Chapter 5, Settling Out of Court, p. 75.
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