A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.

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.

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

Males are conservative about sex, especially those who think they are not.

A conservative is someone who does not think he is morally superior to his grandfather.

To be conservative in politics is to take one’s bearings not from the latest bright idea about how to make a better world, but by looking carefully at what the past reveals both about the kind of people we are and the problems that concern us. As we get older, we often become conservative in our habits, in our family practices, and in our recognition of the richness of our civilization, but this evolution of our character into a set of habits in no way blocks adventurousness. The old no less than the young may be found starting new enterprises, sailing around the world, and solving arcane academic questions. But it is in the ordinary business of life that we find our excitement, not in foolish collective dreams of political perfection.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.

It's a wonderful feeling to be a conservative these days. When I ran for President 17 years ago I was told I was behind the times. Now everybody tells me I was ahead of my time. All I can say is that time certainly is an elusive companion. But those reactions illustrate how far the ideological pendulum has swung in recent years. The American people have expressed their desire for a new course in our public policy in this country, a conservative course. Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution. We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution. We treasure the freedoms that document protects. We believe, as the founding fathers did, that we "are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

Men of conservative temperament have long suspected that one thing leads to another.

The real reason people are conservatives is that they are attached to the things that they love, and want to preserve them from abuse and decay. They are attached to their family, their friends, their religion, and their immediate environment. They have made a lifelong distinction between the things that nourish and the things that threaten their security and peace of mind.

Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.

Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.

In art, the conservative is the vigorous custodian of the artistic treasures of a civilization, of its established values and its tastes-those of the past and even those present ones which have become accepted. Without the conservative we would know little of the circumstances of past art; we would have lost much of its meaning; in fact, we would probably have lost most of the art itself. However greatly the creative artist may chafe at entrenched conservatism, it is still quite true that his own work is both sustained and enriched by it.