Liberal Progressive Quotes & Sayings

Service is the rent we pay for the life we have been given. — Marian Wright Edelman

I'm a liberal. I'm confused when that became a bad word ... — George Clooney

On issue after issue, the polls - and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time - show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right. — Katrina Vanden Heuvel

As a liberal and progressive, I abhor the notion of conflict and bloodshed and very much want to find a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

The "moderate", "progressive", "liberal Christians", "concerned with social justice and the protection of the environment", who see the Gospel simply as a 'Handbook' for 'Moral Guidance', and the divinity of Christ as a cause of embarrassment, an unnecessary occasion of disagreement with atheists and people of other faiths, have reduced the Church to a campaigning force for social justice, indistinguishable from secular organisations, de facto annulling the social, cultural and political relevance of Christianity. It's — Giorgio Roversi

The desire to avoid short-term hardships leads to major dislocations in [housing] markets. — Richard A. Epstein

How come liberals never admit that they're liberal? They've now come up with a new word called 'progressive,' which I thought was an insurance company but apparently it's a label. — Marco Rubio

Those evangelicals who have been raised and shaped by forms of Christianity that are roughly "fundamentalist" will either: a. become taken with the modern moral order and thus sort of replay the excarnational development of modernity, just now a few centuries later, sort of catching up with the wider culture; so under the guise of the "emerging church" or "progressive" evangelicalism, we'll be set on a path to something like Protestant liberalism, a new deism; or b. recognize the disenchantment and excarnation of evangelical Protestantism, and also reject the Christianized subtraction stories of liberal Christianity, and feel the pull of more incarnational spiritualities, and thus move toward more "Catholic" expressions of faith - and these expressions of faith will actually exert more pull on those who have doubts about their "closed" take on the immanent frame. — James K.A. Smith

That effort to undermine competitive markets is no better in the market for labor than it is for goods and services. — Richard A. Epstein

We took the name 'Liberal' because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his rights, and his enterprise, and rejecting the socialist panacea. — Robert Menzies

At every historical conjuncture, the present is not only present, it also encompasses a perspective on the past immanent to it - after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, say, the October Revolution is no longer the same historical event: it is (from the triumphant liberal-capitalist view) no longer the beginning of a new progressive epoch in the history of humanity, but the beginning of a catastrophic swerving off-course of history which reached its end in 1991. — Anonymous

Vacations for wage earners have proved both popular with workers and profitable for employers. Unfortunately, the majority of large employers have not yet followed the example set by a number of progressive corporations. I don't know of a single company that has abandoned vacations for wage earners after having tried the experiment. But I do know many that are delighted with the fruits they have gathered. Under some of the plans vacations with pay must be earned by good behavior, punctuality, etc ... The best results have come where the treatment has been regarded as most liberal. — B.C. Forbes

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future. — Leonard Bernstein

The power of consumer goods ... has been engendered by the so-called liberal and progressive demands of freedom, and, by appropriating them, has emptied them of their meaning, and changed their nature. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

A lot of my father's generation were thinking about communism and had deep liberal and progressive connections. He never admitted whether he was a card-carrying communist party member but I think its possible. — Anne Waldman

A 1990 study by the (liberal) Progressive Policy Institute showed that, after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime rates disappeared. — Ann Coulter

Being a liberal progressive has been demonized as anti-white or overly on the side of blacks. There's nothing that can be done about that; it's just where we are in the history of our perceptions. — Darryl Pinckney

The progressive and liberal mindset believes that to every problem there is a Washington, D.C., solution, — Jeb Bush

It does strange things to you to realize that the conservative establishment is forcing you to be a progressive liberal fighter for universal rights. — Brandon Sanderson

I consider myself a pretty progressive person, and I think I have a track record that shows that. But I'm also not just going to do a policy because it's the liberal thing to do. — Julian Castro

What man is really anti-progressive? For he is only anti-certain-people's-visions-for-the-future. — Criss Jami

My memories of Kabul are vastly different than the way it is when I go there now. My memories are of the final years before everything changed. When I grew up in Kabul, it couldn't be mistaken for Beirut or Tehran, as it was still in a country that's essentially religious and conservative, but it was suprisingly progressive and liberal. — Khaled Hosseini

In his 1907 retirement address, Joseph Pulitzer urged his successors to always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty. — Joseph Pulitzer

There's nothing on this green earth that a liberal progressive fears more than a black American who wants a better life and a smaller government. — Allen West

It is subversive to set up inquisitions like this, state or national, into the thoughts and consciences of Americans ... It is subversive for commissions like this to spread hysteria and intimidation throughout the land that Americans are afraid to sign petitions, afraid to read progressive magazines, afraid to make out checks for liberal causes, afraid to join organizations, afraid to speak their mind on public issues. Americans dare not be free citizens! This is the destruction of democracy. — Florence Luscomb

But the Progressive Conservative is very definitely liberal Republican. These are people who are moderately conservative on economic matters, and in the past have been moderately liberal, even sometimes quite liberal on social policy matters. — Stephen Harper

We need to reach out to small 'l' liberal voters who have a modern outlook on life, who want a party that is hard-headed on the economy - more credible on the economy than Labour - but more socially progressive and fairer than the Conservatives. — Nick Clegg

Most Americans, in their heart, are liberal and progressive. It's just a small minority of people who hate, they hate, they exist in the politics of hate, they don't believe two consenting adults should have the right to be in love and share their lives together and be legally protected by the state, — Michael Moore

Idea that all the beats are wildly liberal and progressive is ridiculous. You have people thinking for themselves and having certain affinities because of their upbringing and who their family are, their own people who were close to them who fought in these wars and so on. It's complicated. But they had that ability to continue the conversation. — Anne Waldman

So many people of liberal persuasion value their own progressive opinions more than they value the people they hold those opinions about. — Stephen L. Carter

Scandinavians are not only the happiest and most contented people in the world, but also the most peaceful, tolerant, egalitarian, progressive, prosperous, liberal, and technologically advanced. — Anonymous

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798) — Thomas Jefferson

Sister Simone Campbell: I sometimes think we, in the United States, think we ought to do something about everything and that it's my job to fix everything. Well, it's not. That's way beyond us. It's more important, I think, that we listen deeply to our stories and then see where it leads. And that's the piece. If we all do our part ... Whatever our part is, wherever we are. Whatever our part is. Just do one thing. That's all we have to do. The guilt - or the curse - of the progressive, the liberal, the whatever, is that we think we have to do it all. And then we get overwhelmed. I get all those solicitations in the mail. And I can't do everything. And so I don't do anything. But that's the mistake. Community is about just doing my part. — Krista Tippett

The young are right if they have little confidence in the ideas which rule most of their elders. But they are mistaken or misled when they believe that these are still the liberal ideas of the nineteenth century, which, in fact, the younger generation hardly knows. We have little right to feel in this respect superior to our grandfathers; and we should never forget that it is we, the twentieth century, and not they, who have made a mess of things.
If in the first attempt to create a world of free men we have failed, we must try again. The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century. — Friedrich Hayek

The notion of a healthy society, of capable people who are able to enjoy life, arose in the liberal, middle-class, leftist and non-religious segments of society. The euthanasia idea came from neither the radical right-wing nor the conservative corner. It was and remains part of the modern age and progressive thought. — Gotz Aly

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. — Aristotle.

Although I was too tactful to ask about politics or religion, I learned that she was socially and economically progressive. She believed in birth control, gun control, and rent control; she believed in the liberation of homosexuals and civil rights for all; she believed in Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thich Nhat Hanh; she believed in nonviolence, world peace, and yoga; she believed in the revolutionary potential of disco and the United Nations of nightclubs; she believed in national self-determination for the Third World as well as liberal democracy and regulated capitalism, which was, she said, to believe that the invisible hand of the market should wear the kid glove of socialism. Her — Viet Thanh Nguyen

The pillars of classical liberalism call for flat taxes, with revenues put to limited uses; strong property rights; and free markets. — Richard A. Epstein

The sense that just about anything goes with the collection of public revenues and the making of public expenditure has contributed mightily to the current malaise. — Richard A. Epstein

The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, 'All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions. — Frank Zappa

Seattle is Sweden! Extremely liberal, progressive, and very white, with a strong undercurrent of racism. — Sherman Alexie

The Left likes to think of itself as the bulwark of progressive liberal individualism, and yet it seeks to progressively coerce others to fund every social program under the sun via majority rule. — Dave Brat

I think that this liberal progressive agenda is not the thing that the American people want and it's antithesis to who we are as a constitutional republic. — Allen West

The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers. In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic. — Adam McKay

I know that no matter how liberal or progressive I profess to be, no matter how successfully, how diligently I seek to be enlightened and nuanced in my understanding of the world and those around me, I know that there still is a tiny, virulent nugget, a germ of prejudice that exists deep within me - the product of those stereotypes and awful jokes of childhood and adolescence, and that it must always be powerfully held at bay by reason, understanding and love. — Michael Winship

Far-seeing patriots should turn scornfully from men who seek power on a platform which with exquisite nicety combines silly inability to understand the national needs and dishonest insintcerity in promising conflicting and impossible remedies. — Theodore Roosevelt

There's a dishonest tyranny in the liberal/progressive/socialist agenda that comes down and says 'we are here because we care about you; we want what's best for you'. But really what they want is the control of your life. — Allen West

We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. — Lionel Trilling