That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.

- Henry Ward Beecher

We can no longer tolerate anti-intellectualism. We can no longer tolerate liberal-bashing and we can no longer tolerate the politics of the dumb and the mean.

- Janeane Garofolo

The people starve because those above them eat too much tax-grain. That is the only reason why they starve.

- Laozi (Lao Tzu, Lao Tse, Lao Tsu)

The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right -- it lies in rejecting conventional political categories.

- Christopher Lasch

I think most people... would be glad to pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president, if only they could have the same economy they had when Bill Clinton was president.

- Howard Dean

Liberals are not unconcerned with economic liberty, but they have come to believe that the common good requires that social justice be given a higher priority than absolute economic freedom.

- Robert S. McElvaine

Politics isn't about left versus right; it's about top versus bottom.

- Jim Hightower

America does not need two Republican parties.

- John Kerry

My parents were liberal intellectuals but even they expected me to stay at home and look after my younger siblings and do the housework.

- Sara Paretsky

There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse -- when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome -- others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

- Barack Obama

I don't mind being called a liberal. I just don't really think it's true.

- Howard Dean

We are either progressing or retrograding all the while. There is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.

- James Freeman Clarke

There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.

- Johann Kaspar Lavater

Real Democrats don't abandon the middle class.

- John Kerry

Some people say we need a third party. I wish we had a second one.

- Jim Hightower

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then ... we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." [September 14, 1960]

- John F. Kennedy



The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

- Bertrand Russell



In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

- H. L. Mencken



I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. [1952]

- Adlai Stevenson



I think that being liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, noncomitted to a cause a€”- but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. (1973)

- Walter Cronkite



American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a lot to answer for here. There's been a drift toward very fragmenting tendencies among left groups, toward this sort of identity politics.

- Noam Chomsky



My faith has been the driving thing of my life. I think it is important that people who are perceived as liberals not be afraid of talking about moral and community values.

- Marian Wright Edelman



Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

- Paulo Freire



Somebody came along and said 'liberal' means 'soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we're gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn't have to go to work if they don't want to.' And instead of saying, 'Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave it to Beaver trip back to the '50s,' we cowered in the corner and said, 'Please don't hurt me.'

- West Wing (television show)



The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club.

- Dave Barry



Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.

The Conservative

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Conservatism is more candid to behold another's worth; reform more disposed to maintain and increase its own.

The Conservative

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Reform is affirmative, conservatism negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth.

The Conservative

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter, we stand by the old; reformers in the morning, conservers at night.

The Conservative

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Conservatism stands on man's confessed limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitude; conservatism on circumstance; liberalism on power; one goes to make an adroit member of the social frame; the other to postpone all things to the man himself; conservatism is debonnair and social; reform is individual and imperious.

The Conservative

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



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.

The Conservative

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen.

- Mort Sahl



There is more to American politics than fat cats and their political friends. There are serious-minded liberals who fight the good fight on many issues, ecologically oriented politicians who remain true to their cause, and honest people of every political stripe who are not beholden to any wealthy people. But there are not enough of them, and they are often worn down by the constant pressure from lobbyists, lawyers and conventional politicians.

- G. William Domhoff



What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man. These are social and political faiths that are part of me, as they are, I suppose, part of all of us. Such beliefs are easy to express. But part of me too is my relation to all life, my religion. And this is not so easy to talk about. Religious experience is highly intimate and, for me, ready words are not at hand.

speech, Libertyville, Illinois, May 21, 1954

- Adlai Stevenson



Change can take place only when liberal and radical pressures are both strong. Intelligent liberals have always recognized the debt they owe to radicals, whose existence permits liberals to push further than they would otherwise have dared, all the while posing as compromisers and mediators. Radicals, however, have been somewhat less sensible of their debt to liberals, partly because of the rather single-minded discipline radicals are almost forced to maintain, plagued as they always are by liberal backsliding and timidity on the one hand and various forms of self-destructiveness and romantic posing on the other.... Liberal reforms and radical change are thus complementary rather than antagonistic. Together they make it possible continually to test the limits of what can be done. Liberals never know whether the door is unlocked because they are afraid to try it. Radicals, on the other hand, miss many opportunities for small advances because they are unwilling to settle for so little.

- Philip Slater



Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

- Jimmy Carter



Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

- Winston Churchill



There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."

- William Ralph Inge



You know what they say: if God had been a Liberal, we wouldn't have had the ten commandments. We'd have had the ten suggestions.

- Christopher Bigsby and Malcolm Bradbury



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

- William E. Gladstone



A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

- Robert Frost



Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence itis the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet.

- Jose Ortega y Gasset



The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.

- G. K. Chesterton



As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

- George Washington



The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove it.

- P. J. O'Rourke