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Conservatism   /kənsˈərvətˌɪzəm/   Listen
Conservatism

noun
1.
A political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes.  Synonym: conservativism.



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"Conservatism" Quotes from Famous Books



... Such conservatism as Stevens's, however, was necessarily swept out of sight for the moment. The wealthier citizens were in a state bordering on panic,—all but Mr. Lemuel Shackford. In his flapping linen duster, for the weather was very sultry now, Mr. Shackford was seen darting ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... subject of the "antagonism" to which the above letter alludes, I have entirely forgotten. In all probability we differed on some subject of politics,[1] by reason of the then rapidly maturing Conservatism which my outlook ahead forced upon me. Nevertheless it would seem from some words in a letter written to me by Lewes in the November of 1869, that my political heresies were not deemed deeply damning. There was a question ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... and control their erudition. The violent opposition of Madagascar women to King Radama's order that the men should have their hair cut, to which Westermarck refers (174-75), surely finds in the proverbial stupid conservatism of barbarous customs a simpler and more rational explanation than in his assumption that this riot illustrated "the important part played by the hair of the head as a stimulant of sexual passion" (to these coarse, masculine women, who had to be speared before ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... most part abandoned him. He continued, however, to produce a great deal of verse, most of which his admirers would much prefer to have had unwritten. The plain Anglo-Saxon yeoman strain which was really the basis of his nature now asserted itself in the growing conservatism of ideas which marked the last forty years of his life. His early love of simplicity hardened into a rigid opposition not only to the materialistic modern industrial system but to all change—the Reform Bill, the reform of education, and in general all progressive political and social movements. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... existed a calendar for festivals to certain divinities important to the little growing town, and a code of ceremonies to be performed in their honour, and of formulae of prayer to be offered to them. The later Romans, in their characteristic conservatism, adhered to those festivals, to that ritual, and to those formulae, even when some of the deities had ceased to be of appreciable account, and when neither the meaning of the ritual nor the sense of the old words was any longer understood by the ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... He stopped; then prudence prevailed. The day was yet too young to give way recklessly to casual gastronomic allurements, so he stepped on again quickly, averting his head from shop windows. Lest his caution and conservatism might give way, he started to turn into a side ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... poems was published in England under the title Old Fashioned Roses and his international reputation was established. In his own country the people had already conferred their highest degrees on him and now the colleges and universities—seats of conservatism—gave him scholastic recognition. Yale made him an Honorary Master of Arts in 1902; in 1903, Wabash and, a year later, the University of Pennsylvania conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Letters, and in 1907 Indiana University gave him his LL. D. Still more recently ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... longing, and the realization of long cherished social aspirations. With the Academy of Music there rested the charm of ancient tradition, more potent then than it has ever been since, and the strength of conservatism. There were stars of rare refulgence in both constellations, which met the Biblical description in differing one from another in their glory. With Colonel Mapleson was Mme. Adelina Patti, who, in so far as she was an exponent of the art of beautiful vocalization, was without a peer the whole ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... Your Majesty will have quite a new people, and the first of peoples." A profound error, which was that of the whole Revolution, and the consequences of which would have been immediately fatal; if the powerful instinct of conservatism and of natural respect for the past had not maintained between the regimen which was crumbling away and the new fabric connections more powerful and more numerous than their friends as well as their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... consigned departed friars—the world of the moon. But it will scarcely supply instances of more memorable individual faculties, or of more powerful effects produced by those faculties. The efforts of Conspiracy and Conquest in France, the efforts of Conservatism and Constitution in England, produced a race of men whom nothing but the crisis could have produced, and who will find no rivals in the magnitude of their capacities, the value of their services, in their loftiness of principle, and their influence on their age; until some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... He had not yielded Daniel to his fate without a struggle, which the previous narrative describes in strong language. 'Sore displeased,' he 'set his heart' on delivering him, and 'laboured' to do so. The curious obstacle, limiting even his power, is a rare specimen of conservatism in its purest form. So wise were our ancestors, that nothing of theirs shall ever be touched. Infallible legislators can make immutable laws; the rest of us must be content to learn by blundering, and to grow by changing. The man who says, 'I never alter my opinions,' condemns himself as either ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... ways they could not look for any long continuance.[1] They regarded Cicero perhaps, if they heard what he said of them, as an inexperienced young man, who would understand better by and by of what materials the world was made. There had been excitement and anxiety enough. Conservatism was in power again. Fine gentlemen could once more lounge in their clubs, amuse themselves with their fish-ponds and horses and mistresses, devise new and ever new means of getting money and spending it, and leave the Roman Empire for the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... intimate acquaintance with that horrid old push ball. How did it ever get into camp anyway, and who ever heard of a ball being so large? It doesn't seem somehow right to me—out of taste, if you get what I mean. There is a certain lack of restraint and conservatism about it which all games played among gentlemen most positively should possess. But the chap who pushed that great big beast of a push ball violently upon my unsuspecting nose was certainly no ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.

... statesman or a soldier is less likely to be up-to-date on theories of poetry than is a professional critic whose business it is to know what is written on his specialty. Another powerful influence in the same direction was the characteristic English conservatism which preferred the traditional paths of ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... professional nor pecuniary interest in any method of healing. The evolution of truth is my only object. To this end, critical and impartial investigation is necessary. While a personal experience of great practical benefit first aroused my interest in the subject, I have cultivated conservatism and incredulity in forming opinions, which are made up from a careful investigation of its literature, its ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... greatly qualified to be received with safety. The "cossaque" of the close of the nineteenth century will be a very different thing from the "cossaque" of the days of Paul. It now means little more than conservatism, and this, too, a conservatism that is not absolutely without that principle of concession to the spirits and wants of the passing moment. These quarrels and bitter conflicts of which we hear so much in the Old World, like some of our own, have their ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper

... to himself, for the sound of Mrs. Richling's gaiters betrayed that fact. Heels were an innovation still new enough to rouse the resentment of masculine conservatism. But for them she would have pleased his sight entirely. Bonnets, for years microscopic, had again become visible, and her girlish face was prettily set in one whose flowers and ribbon, just joyous and no more, were reflected again in the double-skirted silk ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... constituted the convention, a majority of whom, led by John Morin Scott, believed in the reign of the people. The spirit that nerved a handful of men to embargo vessels and seize munitions of war covered by British guns never wanted courage, and this historic band now prepared to resist a conservatism that seemed disposed simply to change the name of their masters. Jay understood this feeling. "It is probable that the convention was ultra-democratic," says William Jay, in the biography of his father, "for I have ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... The intense conservatism in the matter of Languages—the alacrity to prescribe languages on all sides, without inquiring whether they are likely to be turned to account—may be referred to various causes. For one thing—although the remark may seem ungracious and invidious—many ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... each day brought of change and excitement. In this way Farragut became acquainted with the views of most of the resident officers, and realized, without being himself swayed by, the influences to which all of them, and especially those of Southern birth, were subjected. With the conservatism common in seamen who have been for long periods separated by their profession from their native places, the great majority of these officers, already men of middle age, could not but feel keen sorrow at the prospect of changes, which would ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... death, and of Birkin's talk, and of Gudrun's penetrating being, he had lost entirely that mechanical certainty that had been his triumph. Sometimes spasms of hatred came over him, against Birkin and Gudrun and that whole set. He wanted to go back to the dullest conservatism, to the most stupid of conventional people. He wanted to revert to the strictest Toryism. But the desire did not last long enough to carry ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... are facts causing us to think. We perceive how old and strongly rooted are many customs from which to-day we are fighting to escape; customs of separation between women and men, which, with appalling conservatism, have descended through the ages. Will they ever be broken down? I do not know. These questions are not considered in adequate fashion; often we are ignorant of the deep forces driving the sexes into situations of antagonism. Clearly these primitive ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... stands for tradition against innovation of all kinds, whether in politics, religion, or art. The hostility to Euripides displayed here and in several other plays, like his attacks on Socrates, is a result of this attitude of conservatism. The present play is notable also as a piece of elaborate if not over-serious literary criticism from the pen ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... and Records even yet retain certain characteristics of a period when judicial officers and clerks represented to the public mind the embodiment of what was known as "Red Tape," a true colloquialism descriptive of the attitude of official conservatism. These departments being governed according to the latest bibliographical methods are of merely supplemental value as reference. The Simplification and National Unification of Federal and State statutes ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... fatally from it. He never disowned it; he defended and justified it before the people; but he declined from the high stand he had taken as the champion of freedom and justice, and the later years of his political life were marked by rather an anxious conservatism. His final efforts were unavailingly made to stay the course of secession by suggestions of impossible compromise between the North and South. At the close of the war he was stricken with paralysis while visiting as a private citizen the Capitol ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... though Smollett's master-piece, Humphrey Clinker, did not appear until 1771, the year of his death. Fiction developed in various directions. In The Vicar of Wakefield Goldsmith, in spite of his literary conservatism, portrayed manners and character with a perfectly natural grace, and with a delightful delicacy of touch. Laurence Sterne, the humorous and indecent prebendary of York, illustrates the prevalence ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... appear to be a worthy novel-reader if actually you are not. There is a novel that, I assure you on my honor, is as good as the "Three Guardsmen;" but—oh!—so—much—shorter; the pity of it, too!—oh, the pity of it! On the second reading—now, let us speak with frank conservatism—on the second reading of it, I give you my word, man to man, I dreaded to turn every page, because it brought the end nearer. If it had been granted to me to have one wish fulfilled that fine winter night, I should have said with humility: "Beneficent Power, string it out by nine ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... critics of democracy have accused it not only of rash iconoclasm, but of obstinate conservatism and obstructiveness. It seems unreasonable to charge the same persons with two opposite faults; but it is true that where the popular emotions are not touched, the masses will cling to old abuses from mere force of habit. As Maine says, universal suffrage would ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... personnel, as well as their courage and discipline, and also upon the progressive spirit of constructors and naval experts, faced with the most difficult problems, the wrong solution of which would mean the waste of millions of dollars and possible defeat in war. Every change had to overcome the spirit of conservatism inherent in military organizations, where seniority rules, errors are sanctified by age, and every innovation upsets cherished routine. Thus in the contract for Ericsson's Monitor it was stipulated that she should have masts, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... sign it?' 'No, he never authorized me to sign it.' 'Then do you know that you have ruined Mr. Lincoln?' 'I did not know that I had ruined Mr. Lincoln; did not intend to do so; thought he was a made man by it; that the time had come when conservatism was a crime and a blunder.' 'You, then, take the responsibility of your acts, do you?' 'I do, most emphatically.' However, I instantly sat down and wrote to Mr. Lincoln, who was then in Pekin or Tremont—possibly at court. He received my letter, and instantly replied, either ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... but no friendship nor influence was sufficient to retard what may be called his retrograde course: like his friend, Lord Stanley, he became less and less a Whig, and finally stood in the foreground of Conservatism. He was a warm supporter of the Irish Roman Catholics, but did not appear ever to have understood their political tactics. His sympathy for what is termed Pusey-ism may have accounted for his leanings ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... anxious. The emotional tension necessary to ritual was absent. A few peoples, e.g. the Egyptians, have practised daily incantations to bring back the sun. Probably they had at first felt a real tension of anxiety, and then—being a people hidebound by custom—had gone on from mere conservatism. Where the sun returns at a longer interval, and is even, as among the Esquimaux, hidden for the long space of six months, ritual inevitably arises. They play at cat's-cradle to catch the ball of the sun lest it should sink ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... shock on hearing that there are large numbers of even highly educated human beings who hold that the standard is altogether false. Yet that, Lyall would argue, is generally the Oriental frame of mind. Fatalism, natural conservatism and ignorance lead the uneducated to reject our ideas, while the highly educated often hold that our standard of progress is too material to be a true measure, and that consequently, far from advancing, we are standing still or even retrograding. Lyall, personifying a Brahmin, said, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... we must now admit, more than his fair share of abuse from the Liberal press, for the comfortable conservatism of his maturity; and Macaulay did not love the Laureate. We note that Blackwood's defended him with spirit, and Wilson's protracted, and furious, attack on Macaulay for this particular review may be found in the Nodes ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... change them at once and entirely. I don't object to moderate Liberalism—perhaps as many as one-third of our parents are moderate Liberals; but decidedly the most desirable form of political belief for a successful schoolmaster is a quiet and gentlemanly, but unswerving Conservatism. I don't say you ought to be an uncompromising old-fashioned Tory—far from it: that alienates not only the dissenters, but even the respectable middle-class Liberals. What is above all things expected in a schoolmaster is ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... literature as in society. The credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition, whether of ancient or comparatively recent times, are subjected to very different handling from that which the indulgence or credulity of ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... old man, he has prudence, he is without passion; moreover he has not the spirit of inquiry or the searching into the Beyond; he accepts the transmitted religion and opinions without question, through the conservatism of age as well as of character. It is clear that the spiritual scission of the time could not enter deep into his nature; his long absence from home and country produced no alienation; he went home ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... that this conservatism is natural with some people—this lack of fervor, this absence of enthusiasm. Still I will admit Mr. Black's tranquillity—nay, his glacial composure—under the circumstances surprised and grieved me. I did not understand why the prospect and the promise of "our house" did not set Mr. Black—and, ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... of the fact that her taste was the extreme of conservatism, refusing to acknowledge hardly any fiction that was not almost classic. Even Stevenson aroused ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... "Conservatism, both in the States and in Great Britain, when rightly understood, has a fixed principle of action, which is to conserve the constitution of the country, and not subvert it. Now, liberalism everywhere is distinguished by having no principle. In England it longs for office, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... practical work in Edinburgh on the lines he lays down, and I have lately had occasion to note, and call attention to the advantage to the city of much wise conservatism in regard to our older buildings which he ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes

... of indifference and prejudice to be overcome before any remedies were possible. Perhaps some day some industrious and lucid historian will disentangle all the muddle of impulses and antagonisms, the commercialism, utilitarianism, obstinate conservatism, humanitarian enthusiasm, out of which our present educational organisation arose. I have long since come to believe it necessary that all new social institutions should be born in confusion, and that at first they should present chiefly crude and ridiculous aspects. The distrust ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... This conservatism was allied with a certain fatalism, hopelessness, and moral indolence in Hawthorne's nature. Hollingsworth, in "The Blithedale Romance," is his picture of the one-ideaed reformer, sacrificing all to his hobby. Hollingsworth's hobby is prison reform, and ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers

... and tax themselves for such improvements as they desire. This separation of the village from the township has been inevitable where the farmers take no pride or interest in it, and has often been necessitated by their parsimony or conservatism. This is well illustrated by an incident related ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... note," he tells us, "in the mental attitude of the forties and fifties in England, and that in which they contrast most sharply with our own times, was confidence.... In party politics this confidence was almost without limit. There was a section of Conservatism which really believed in things as they were, and thought it undesirable to attempt any change for the better.... It was simply—I speak of a section, not the party as a whole—the articulate emotion of privileged and contented ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chamber-maid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. The road was an institution, the ring was an institution. Men rallied around them; and, not without a kind of conservatism expatiated on the benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no more decay of British spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth and ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... equally based. The Jesuits would call such a woman a nursing mother of the Church, a protector of the cause of orthodoxy, the watchful guardian of the royal interests and those of all established institutions. Any ultra-conservatism, logically carried out, would land any person on ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... readiness of the Indians to impart their knowledge, it more often required days and weeks of patient endeavor before my assistants and I succeeded in overcoming the deep-rooted superstition, conservatism, and secretiveness so characteristic of primitive people, who are ever loath to afford a glimpse of their inner life to those who are not of their own. Once the confidence of the Indians gained, the way led gradually through the difficulties, but long and serious study was necessary before ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... became associated with his father in the already great banking house of Ames and Company. But the animality of his nature soon found the confinement irksome; his father's greater conservatism hampered his now rapidly expanding spirit of commercialism; and after a few years in the banking house he withdrew and set up for himself. The father, while lacking the boy's fearlessness, had ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... time. Musing over Coke and Blackstone, perhaps he saw himself succeeding Ames and Otis and Webster, the idol of society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of the elegant ease, and the cultivated conservatism of Massachusetts. * * * But one October day he saw an American citizen assailed by a furious mob in the city of James Otis for saying with James Otis that a man's right to liberty is inherent and inalienable. As the jail doors closed upon Garrison to save his life, Garrison and his cause ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... and such ample resources of learning, as separately claim admiration, and combined, constitute a teacher of the most dignified rank, who can and will influence the world. We do not altogether agree with Mr. James; on the contrary, we have been regarded as particularly grim in our conservatism; but we are none the less sensible of Mr. James's surpassing merits as a writer upon the philosophy of society. We dedicate this paragraph to him on account of the series of lectures he has just delivered in New-York, upon "The Symbolism of Property," "Democracy and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... obnoxious those of the philosophers and the exegetists, {36} and reserved all his favors for those of the statesmen, as the only ones fit for the people.[18] These were the ones protecting the old customs, traditions and frequently even the old privileges. But in the perpetual flux of things conservatism ever carries with it a germ of death. Just as the law failed to maintain the integrity of ancient principles, like the absolute power of the father of the family, principles that were no longer in keeping with the social realities, ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... been conservative on these matters and always expect to be because in conservatism lies safety. These figures I have given you are merely my personal opinion. I have seen pecan groves ten and fifteen years old for which I would not have given any more than the land was worth on which they were growing. If any one has a notion that he can ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various

... return to the uneventful routine of life at the homestead, involved a sacrifice which he would gladly have avoided, he did not attempt to deny; but having invested a large amount of earnest, vigorous faith in the final conservatism of that much-abused monster which the seditious army of the Disappointed anathematize as "Bad Luck," he went to work contentedly in this new sphere of action, and waited patiently and trustfully for the slow grinding ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... possession. The remarkable range of classification provided for, the adaptability of construction to the different classifications, the reliance on occupation, the dependence on treatment, and the subordination of the custodial feature, except where a wise conservatism demands its retention, are apparent alike ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various

... available for thoughtful planning and conservation. In a precipitate and voracious society plunging on into its future, they look back and seek to retain the best of what has always been, for conservationism at least in this sense is conservatism too. Upon their increase in numbers, in broad understanding and in political forcefulness, upon the arrival of their basic values at a point of publicly accepted respectability at least equal to that presently enjoyed by time-hallowed ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... those early days, Fra Francesco had abated nothing of his scrupulous and loving conservatism; never had he questioned a rule, nor chosen the least, instead of the most, permitted in an act of humility; and after his Church, the Madonna, and his patron saint, he expended the devotion of his nature upon his friend with a just estimate of his power and daring ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... the theory of Europe that Americans are maniacs of money. European conservatism draws a money-line beyond which it will not pass. When any man of Europe has a proposal of business too big for the European mouth—wearing its self-imposed half-muzzle of conservatism—that promoter and his proposal head for America. It was this which gained Washington the advantage of a visit ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... this as a mere counsel of conservatism, an unqualified commendation of antiquity. True, it implies that the good way will not be a new discovery, a track that you and I strike out for ourselves. Among the paths of conduct, that which is entirely original is likely to be false, and that which is true is likely to have some footprints ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke

... this sort would do much to override the opposition of those who, through conservatism, fear of personal loss, or insistence upon more than their share of the benefits of the readjustment, made it impossible for tenants to ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley

... other had a less rigid temperament, and from natural kindness of heart, and perhaps personal inclination, he might have been led without this check to yield to the pressure of circumstances at the expense of a true conservatism. Bishop White, however, was not more gentle and generous than capable of appreciating the character of his Episcopal brother; and the testimony which he bore long years after was that he "had ever retained a pleasing recollection of the interviews of that ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... of the most spacious buildings on Broadway, yet to a casual visitor they gave little indication of the vast power which centred there. The rooms were substantially furnished, but everything evidenced a restraint equal almost to the conservatism which is so distinguishing a mark of the old-established English houses. This was an expression of Robert Gorham's individuality, and the Companies itself reflected it in its modest exterior appearance ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... believe in a wise conservatism as against an unthinking radicalism, I am in no sense of the term a "stand-patter." The individual who has earned this picturesque title, I care not whether in the halls of Congress or in the ranks of the educators, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... thinking and believing. Western philosophy has had a noble share in the achievement; and the schoolmaster has been a pioneer in the work of transforming the sentiments and ideals of the people. The holy men of India,—the ecclesiastics,—by their conservatism, have lost all influence over the many thousands who have passed through the universities, and who represent the intelligence, culture, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... their sway. Every town in the three kingdoms with a certain population was to have two members. But here there was much room for cavil,—as all men knew would be the case. Who shall say what is a town, or where shall be its limits? Bits of counties might be borrowed, so as to lessen the Conservatism of the county without endangering the Liberalism of the borough. And then there were the boroughs with one member,—and then the groups of little boroughs. In the discussion of any such arrangement how easy is the picking of holes; how impossible the fabrication of a garment that shall ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... more undivided attention. "Precisely. And one must grow all the time to do that. One's place in life is a growing thing, It doesn't remain fixed and changeless—as English conservatism usually implies. Are you a friend of Sir ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... the most remarkable characteristics of the Semitic family of speech is its conservatism and resistance to change. As compared with the other languages of the world, its grammar and vocabulary have alike undergone but little alteration in the course of the centuries during which we can trace its existence. ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... constantly eating them out of a paper-bag. What did he do with the bag? My answer is, "he popped it." Down went the cherries, and bang went the bag and fifty centimes. Well, did not Royat effect some change in his conservatism? What has been the result? But I am ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... mention later, gave Roosevelt and his country great prestige abroad and the admiration of a large part of his countrymen. But his truly significant work related to home affairs. Now at last, he, the young David of the New Ideals, was to go forth, if he dared, and do battle with the Goliath of Conservatism. With him there was no question of daring. He had been waiting for twenty years for this opportunity. Such a conflict or duel has rarely been witnessed, because it rarely happens that an individual who consciously embodies ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... precincts of the yard, the tender conservatism of our great-hearted mother Nature, gently toned the savage stony features; and even under the chill frown of iron barred windows, golden sunshine bravely smiled, soft grasses wove their emerald velvet tapestries starred and flushed with dainty satin petals, which late Autumn roses ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... He was preparing a bill to restore the ancient rigorous tyranny of the ecclesiastical courts; and by his own authority he directed that, in the writs for the parliament, the summons should be to meet at Oxford,[275] where the conservatism of the country would be released from the dread of the London citizens. The spirit which, thirteen years before, had passed the Six Articles Bill by acclamation, continued to smoulder in the slow minds of the country gentlemen, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... on one of those gigantic illusions which hold humanity captive for centuries. Here, as elsewhere, knowledge will spell freedom. When we realize that here and now nations are in course of transformation, that the divisions of the past are not the divisions of to-day, and that we, despite conservatism and resistance, are made to serve as ingredients in some great mixture of to-morrow, momentous questions arise. Are nations made by war and conquest? Are peoples amalgamated by oppressive legislation? Do political alliances between States ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... His conservatism had its roots in historic achievements and the chill that crept into his heart as he thought of this book came, not from the fear of the possible clash of forces in the future, but from the dread of changes which might mean the loss of priceless things in a nation's life. He believed ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... desperately to the opposite wing of the party. The radical leaders, really opportunists, forswore or hid their convictions for the sake of victory, tried to teach their unskillful tongues the language of conservatism, and joined in with the conservatives in the nomination of Parker. But Bryan did not yield; he forswore nothing, hid nothing, and he fought a lonely fight, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... than the young men and women who have had a modern education under Chinese auspices. Europeans in general are more conservative about China than the modern Chinese are, and they tend to convey their conservatism to their pupils. And of course their whole influence, unavoidably if involuntarily, militates against national self-respect in ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... had occasion to remark a change in Mr. Brumley's bearing and attitude that carries him far from the kindly and humorous conservatism of his earlier work. You have shared Lady Harman's astonishment at the ardour of his few stolen words in the garden, an astonishment that not only grew but flowered in the silences of her captivity, and you know something of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... the quaint mullions of its windows, the student may still recall without a jar the figures which make Lambeth memorable, figures such as those of Warham and Erasmus, of Grocyn and Colet and More. Unhappily there was a darker side to this conservatism. The Archbishops had returned like the Bourbons, forgetting nothing and having learned hardly anything. If any man could have learned the lesson of history it was Juxon's successor, the hard sceptical Sheldon, and one of the jottings in Pepys' Diary shows us what sort of lesson he had learned. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... of humour—those appeared to be the fundamentals characterising the ensemble—supplemented by the extremes of restless intelligence and grim conservatism. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... Castlereagh, Wellington, and Canning. Much injustice has been done to the first of these. For many critics have been misled by Byron's denunciation of Castlereagh, just as others have spoken lightly of the stubborn conservatism of Wellington, or the easy and half-cynical insouciance of the author of the Anti-Jacobin. As a matter of fact, Castlereagh was by no means an opponent of the principles of the Holy Alliance. He joined with Russia, Austria, and Prussia as a not unwilling member of the successive Congresses, ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney

... who knows the public schools, their ironbound conservatism, and, as a whole, intense respect for order and authority, will appreciate the magnitude of his feat, even though he may not approve of it. Leaders of men are rare. Leaders of boys are almost unknown. It requires genius ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... indefinite extension. To acquiesce in the honesty and justice of such a course of policy as the last few years have shown, to assist in inaugurating a future that shall accord with it, is nationality and conservatism! No wonder Mr. Cushing is charmed with the consistency of his new allies. Do they propose to steal Cuba?—they are the party who would extend the area of Freedom. Do they make Slavery a matter of federal concern by means of the Supreme Court?—they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... This conservatism on his part was not due to an innate lack of self-confidence. Whenever he felt sure of his social footing, his attitude toward women was bold and assured. But his social footing was a peculiarly uncertain thing for the reason that he was a Mexican. This ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... these agencies of conservatism there is nothing much that can be counted on but that slow, random, and essentially insidious working of habituation that tends to the obsolescence of the received preconceptions; partly by supplanting them with something new, but more effectually by their falling into ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... question were soon to open at Washington Park, on the South Side, and were considered quite society affairs among those who did not affect religious rectitude and conservatism. Mrs. Hurstwood had never asked for a whole season ticket before, but this year certain considerations decided her to get a box. For one thing, one of her neighbours, a certain Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey, who were possessors ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... new generation. So we get no new individuals, but only more or less prudent, stupid, amiable, or bad-tempered examples of the genus man. The still living instincts of the ape, double, in the case of man, the effect of heredity. Conservatism is for the present stronger in mankind than the effort to produce new types. But this last characteristic is the most valuable. The educator should do anything but advise the child to do what everybody does. He should ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key

... walks of ours I believe he did most of the talking, and from his talk then and at other times there remains to me an impression of his growing conservatism. I had in fact come into his life when it had spent its impulse towards positive reform, and I was to be witness of its increasing tendency towards the negative sort. He was quite past the storm and stress of his anti-slavery age; with the close of the war which had broken ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... I recalled my father's stories of the stern passions of anti-slavery days. In this hall Wendell Phillips in the pride and power of his early manhood, had risen to reply to the cowardly apologies of entrenched conservatism, and here now another voice was about to be raised in behalf of those whom the law oppressed. My brother had also read Progress and Poverty and both of us felt that we were taking part in a distinctly historical event, the beginning ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... large classes at the base of a social pyramid; they are the core of the society. They are conservative. They accept life as they find it, and live on by tradition and habit. In other words, the great mass of any society lives a purely instinctive life just like animals. We must not be misled by the conservatism of castes and aristocracies, who resist change of customs and institutions by virtue of which they hold social power. The conservatism of the masses is of a different kind. It is not produced by interests, but it is instinctive. It is due to inertia. Change would make new effort necessary ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... lesson which Nature never tires of repeating, that all true growth is gradual. Political science must start with the first axiom of natural science, that 'Nature acts by insensible gradations.' Radicalism is not reform. Radicalism and conservatism must combine together to make reform. An eminent divine and scholar lately illustrated the point thus: 'The arm of progressive power rests always on the fulcrum of stability.' This statement is exhaustive, and sums up ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... promptly submitting to acknowledged superiors. In the same blindness and ignorance, they see only two parties, equal in all respects in this war, and realize nothing of the innate vitality and irresistibly accretive power of free-labor, science, and progress, when brought into opposition with a conservatism which scorns every thing pertaining to the rights of the majority. Misled by their associations, they believe that the 'Aristocratic' party must triumph in the end, forgetting that even in their own country capital is gradually destroying ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Virginia, as was evidenced in the awed respect which all Miltonvillians, white and black alike, showed to Major Richardson in his house on the hill. He was part of the traditions of the place. It was shown in the conservatism of the old white families, and a certain stalwart if reflected self-respect in ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... have preferred to answer the dispatch herself, and to have let her father come. To a girl brought up with a belief in the right of individual independence of thought and action, there was something in Mrs. Randolph's practical ignoring of that right which startled her in spite of her new conservatism, while, as the daughter of a business man, her instincts revolted against Mrs. Randolph's unbusiness-like action with the telegram, however vulgar and unrefined she may have begun to consider a life of business. The result was a certain constraint and embarrassment ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... Mr. Irving's politics or religion, even if I had intimate knowledge of both, (which assuredly I had not,) would be, perhaps, to overstep decorous limits. It may, however, properly be mentioned, that, in the face of all inherent probabilities as to his comfortable conservatism, and his earnest instincts in favor of fraternal conciliation and justice, (which was as marked a quality in him as in the great man whom be so faithfully portrayed,) in spite of all the considerations urged by timid gentlemen of the old school in favor of Fillmore and the status ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... and I think with truth, that Mr. Gladstone always read the leaders in the Standard and that it was his favourite paper. He had, no doubt, a strong vein of Conservatism in his nature. Though he thought it his duty to be a Liberal, when he gave himself a holiday, so to speak, from party feelings, what he reverted to was almost exactly the Standard attitude towards the great institutions I have just named. A propos of this I ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... people, for reasons already discussed in the chapter on Habit. The old and the accustomed are comfortable and facile; change means inconvenience and frustration of habitual desires. This is in part the explanation of the increasing conservatism of men as they grow older. Not only do they have a keener sense of the difficulty of introducing changes, but their own fixed habits of mind and emotion make part of the difficulty. They like the old ways and persist in them just as they ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... apparently hidebound conservatism on nature's part—are very much in the public eye at present, partly on account of their novelty and of their exceptional and extraordinary character. Easily first among these trouble-breeding remnants is that famous, or rather notorious, scrap of intestine, the appendix vermiformis, an obvious ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... American sperm whale fishery has never fully recovered. When the writer was in the trade, some twenty-two years ago, it was credited with a fleet of between three and four hundred sail; now it may be doubted whether the numbers reach an eighth of that amount. A rigid conservatism of method hinders any revival of the industry, which is practically conducted to-day as it was fifty, or even a hundred years ago; and it is probable that another decade will witness the final extinction of what was once one of the most important maritime ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... reorganized upon the Chinese plan, under Confucian influence; but it was not until well into the ninth century that Buddhism really began to spread throughout the country. Eventually it over-shadowed the national life, and coloured all the national thought. Yet the extraordinary conservatism of the ancient ancestor-cult—its inherent power of resisting fusion—was exemplified by the readiness with which the two religions fell apart on the disestablishment of Buddhism in 1871. After having been literally overlaid by Buddhism for nearly a thousand years, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... will rejoice to see its authority so exerted as to advance the prosperity and honor of the nation, whilst he will watch with jealousy any attempt to mutilate this charter of our liberties or pervert its powers to acts of aggression or injustice. Thus shall conservatism and progress blend their harmonious action in preserving the form and spirit of the Constitution and at the same time carry forward the great improvements of the country with a rapidity and energy which ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... of the Orient slip out of its fingers through culpable and stubborn mismanagement, after repeated warnings and similar experiences in other quarters of the globe. Yet although Spain's lethargic, petrified conservatism has had to yield to the progressive spirit of the times, the loss to her is more sentimental than real, and Spaniards of the next century will probably care as little about it as Britons do about the secession of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... similar position on the map, and from being a purely European market might have become a world-metropolis. We have seen that the silting up of the Zwyn did not account alone for the rapid decadence of the Flemish city, and that the conservatism of the Guilds and Corporations, their attachment to their old privileges and their disregard of modern tendencies, were the main reasons of its downfall. In 1513, Damme and Sluis were partly in ruins, and in the middle of the century, whole quarters of Bruges were emptied of their inhabitants, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... "'English conservatism has recently received a shock from the scion of Blanford, and the Bishop's son, in connection with 'The Purple Kangaroo,' has caused the British lion to hump himself into the ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... engine-driver, or engineer as he is called lingua Americana, is much better catered for in the United States than in England. His cab is protected both overhead and at the sides, while his bull's-eye window permits him to look ahead without receiving the wind, dust, and snow in his eyes. The curious English conservatism which, apparently, believes that a driver will do his work better because exposed to almost the full violence of the elements always excites a very natural surprise in the American visitor ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... The conservatism of unthinkingness is one of the potential forces of the world. It lies athwart the progress of mankind like a colossal mountain-chain, chilling the atmosphere on both sides of it for a thousand miles. The Hannibal who would reach the eternal city of Truth on the other side of these Alps must ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... which characterised Queen Anne's reign, a longing desire for Church unity was by no means absent. Only these aspirations had taken by this time a somewhat altered form. The history of the English Constitution has ever been marked by alternations, in which Conservatism and attachment to established authority have sometimes been altogether predominant, at other times a resolute, even passionate contention for the security and increase of liberty. In Queen Anne's reign a reaction of the former ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... useful challenge to the times, though it is a dangerous book to put in the hands of anyone inclined to Conservatism. After all, romanticism was a great liberating force. It liberated men, not from decorum, but from pseudo-decorum—not from humility, but from subserviency. It may be admitted that, without humility and decorum of the true kind, liberty ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... trumpet-toned warning to the nations against a destructive radicalism, has not been lost upon us. How ought we to adore the Providence, guided by whose inspiration (as with becoming reverence we may believe) Washington and his supporters directed our infant republic in the track of English conservatism, fearful of the vagaries of the Red Republicanism of France! This prudent policy justifies itself more and more in our experience; and to-day the great heart of the people beats in unison with those Providential ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of the true faith, not yet revealed. However that may be, I am content at present to say that in fact the development of new literary types is discontinuous, and implies a compromise between the two conditions which in literature correspond to conservatism and radicalism. The conservative work is apt to become a mere survival: while the radical may include much that has the crudity of an imperfect application of new principles. Another point may be briefly indicated. The growth of new forms is ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... understood, and an obstinacy of character which shall make the student's friends find it less trouble to let him have his own way than to bend him into theirs. Our schools and academies or universities are covertly but essentially radical institutions, and abhorrent to the genius of Conservatism. Their sin is the true radical sin of being in too great a hurry, and the natural result has followed, they waste far more time than they save. But it must be remembered that this proposition like every other wants tempering with a slight ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... detected; whence it logically follows that a dozen generations of irresponsible minstrels and vagrant reciters were learned, conscientious, and staunchly conservative of the archaic tone. Their erudite conservatism, for example, induced them, in deference to the traditions of the bronze age, to describe all weapons as of bronze, though many of the poets were living in an age of weapons of iron. It also prompted them to describe all shields as made on the far-away old ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... time he appeared with it before the executive committee of the trustees. But it met much opposition from one of our oldest members, who was constitutionally averse to what he thought new-fangled education, partly from conservatism, partly from considerations of expense; and this opposition was so threatening that, in order to save the proposed department, I was obliged to pledge myself to become responsible for any extra expense caused by it during the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... some neighbor had argued that the evil-disposed might roll away the stone and enter at will, Sylvia had replied, with the innocent conservatism with which she settled an ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... endeavored, with some particularity of examination and detail, to find and state not only what are, but what should be, the tendencies of educational thought and effort in our country and times. And we seem to find that those tendencies are, in spite of a stand-still conservatism or perplexed doubt in some quarters, and of a conflict of views and practices in others, largely in the direction in which the ends to be sought show that they should be. The Education to be, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... hide-bound retarder of progress and worshipper of established local custom. Therefore it was a constant source of surprise and worry to him that he should have a progressive daughter. There were four other children, patterns of quiet, plodding conservatism, but—such is the irony of fate—the youngest, prettiest, and his favorite, was an independent, opinionated young woman, who seemed to turn a deaf ear to paternal and maternal advice of safest New Jersey type. In her father's words, she ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... spite of the passive and active hostility of the dominant Socialist and labor organization. Under the impulse of mass action, the industrial proletariat senses its own power and acquires the force to act equally against capitalism and the conservatism of organizations. Indeed, a vital feature of mass action is precisely that it places in the hands of the proletariat the power to overcome the fetters of these organizations, to act in spite of their conservatism, and through proletarian mass action emphasize ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... was a pioneer and a special pleader in the cause of French romanticism, and, in his use of the terms, romanticism stands for progress, liberty, originality, and the spirit of the future; classicism, for conservatism, authority, imitation, the spirit of the past. According to him, every good piece of romantic art is a classic in the making. Decried by the classicists of to-day, for its failure to observe traditions, it will be used by the classicists of the future as ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... the legislation that was secured six years later. It is only justice to ex-President Roosevelt to say that had it not been for his earnest advocacy of railroad rate regulation the Hepburn Bill would never have been passed. With a chairman of the Committee on Interstate Commerce well known for his conservatism on the subject, with a majority of Republicans on the committee in sympathy with him, without the arousing of public sentiment by President Roosevelt, nothing ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... however, several minor suggestions in "Made in Germany," and I am glad to be able to express my full agreement with what Mr. Williams said about technical education, about metric weights and measures, and about the excessive conservatism of the English people. I agree with him that it is monstrous that English lads should nowadays have no chance of thoroughly learning any trade. The old system of apprenticeship is almost dead, and the modern device of technical education remains ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox

... revolution in the mother country, which had tired of the old corrupt despotism. Isabella II was driven into exile and the country left to waver about uncertainly for several years, passing through all the stages of government from red radicalism to absolute conservatism, finally adjusting itself to the middle course of constitutional monarchism. During the effervescent and ephemeral republic there was sent to the Philippines a governor who set to work to modify the old system and establish a government more in harmony with modern ideas and more democratic in ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... offer faithful allegiance to a network of somewhat arbitrary institutions, social forms, and intellectual habits—on the ground that his country is exposed to more serious dangers from premature emancipation than it is from stubborn conservatism. France is the only European country which has sought to make headway towards a better future by means of a revolutionary break with its past; and the results of the French experiment have served for other European countries ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... England was slow in coming into line. Caxton never used anything but Gothic type. Roman type was not introduced into England at all until 1509, and then had to make its way against the older forms backed by English conservatism. Germany has never adopted the Roman letter for general use but makes some use ...
— The Uses of Italic - A Primer of Information Regarding the Origin and Uses of Italic Letters • Frederick W. Hamilton

... Avenue house succumbed to a quick sale, and in attempting to divert the law business out of the clayey rut of quiet old conservatism, the Enterprise Amusement Company was ultimately ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... to win, and those of us most opposed to their ideas in private sadly conceded their probable victory. The result when it came was all the more a surprise and blow to the Suffragists and a welcome reassurance to the friends of stability and conservatism. The figures show us that while the stronghold of Populism, the South, went for the measure, Alameda County turned the scale. One must know California to realize what that means. Alameda County contains the city of Oakland, which is admittedly the most ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... gotten into a fixed groove; laws had been laid down as to what was classic and what not. Conservatism was at the helm. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... a man without "incumbrances"—as a severe conservatism designates the lares of the cottage—and, at home, lived at his ease and indulged ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... words. In other authors such words as, for instance, "fatalistically," pass unnoticed, but your things are musical, harmonious, and every crude touch jars fearfully. Of course it is a question of taste, and perhaps this is only a sign of excessive fastidiousness in me, or the conservatism of a man who has adopted definite habits for himself long ago. I am resigned to "a collegiate assessor," and "a captain of the second rank" in descriptions, but "flirt" and "champion" when they occur in descriptions ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... much as to give them schools to go to. Everybody applauds it. The authorities do not question it; but still they do not provide playgrounds. Private charity has to keep a beggarly half-dozen going where there ought to be forty or fifty, as a matter of right, not of charity. Call it official conservatism, inertia, treachery, call it by soft names or hard; in the end it comes to this, I suppose, that it is the whetstone upon which our purpose is sharpened, and in that sense we have apparently got to be thankful for it. ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... their foolish thoughts. But I am thoroughly weary of "Statements by the Prime Minister" which state nothing, and of mere denunciations by Sir Arthur Markham and Sir Edward Carson; also of the shrieking of the Yellow Press, the wishy-washiness of the Liberal Press and the Spectator, the impenetrable Conservatism of the Morning Post, and the noisy sensationalism of the Bottomley—Austin Harrison crew. Thank goodness the strong broad stream of British spirit runs deeper and is much purer than would appear from this froth and scum ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... are as old as worms. All these are very old, older than the mountains, and yet I cannot doubt that they must last as long as man exists. Indeed, while Nature is wonderfully inventive of new structures, her conservatism in holding on to old ones is still more remarkable. In the ascending line of development she tries an experiment once exceedingly thorough, and then the question is solved for all time. For she always takes time enough to try the experiment exhaustively. It took ages to find how to build ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... eye, thou beautifully rollest: But knowest thou whitherward? Is it towards the road's end? Old use-and-wont; established methods, habitudes, once true and wise; man's noblest tendency, his perseverance, and man's ignoblest, his inertia; whatsoever of noble and ignoble Conservatism there is in men and Nations, strongest always in the strongest men and Nations; all this is as a road to thee, paved smooth through the abyss,—till all this end. Till men's bitter necessities can endure thee no more. Till Nature's patience with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... potent influences at work, and accepting these representative utterances, it may yet be asked by the incredulous—What of the inherent conservatism, the proverbial tenacity of India? Is there really any perceptible and significant change to record as the outcome of the influences of the nineteenth century? Well, the expression "Indian conservatism" is misleading. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison



Words linked to "Conservatism" :   neoconservatism, ideology, political orientation, political theory, reaction



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