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[It is] rational pessimism that provides the strongest justification for a conservative politics.

— Maurice Cowling The Present Position (1978)

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More quotes by Maurice Cowling

If there is a class war—and there is—it is important that it should be handled with subtlety and skill.

The Present Position (1978)

Liberalism is essentially the belief that there can be a reconciliation of all difficulties and differences, and since there can't, it is a misleading way to approach politics.

I'm an intellectual Thatcherite, just as I was an intellectual Powellite, and I think it important that the Conservative party should be in good hands and that it should win elections.

[L]ow-keyed respectability...is the real religion of the English people.

The Present Position (1978)

What needs to be explained is not particularly why Roman Catholics go to church, but why Protestants don't. Somehow the gut seems to have gone out of English Protestantism. It's turned into these post-Christian moralistic sentiments.

All Maurice Cowling quotes →

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Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Albert Einstein

Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Mao Zedong

Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state.

Benito Mussolini

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

Theodor Adorno The Authoritarian Personality (1950)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Maurice Cowling (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.