"If you are 20 and not a liberal, you don't have a heart. If you are
40 and not a conservative, you don't have a brain"
I don't agree with the former part of the quote. But I do agree with the latter. Seriously, I think if you are 40 and haven't yet found a way through your liberal indoctrination, then there is a good
possibility that you don't have a brain, so to speak. I was a liberal in college
like nearly everyone else. I was eventually able to overcome this
pervasive mentality. I believe most people eventually do, as well.
This is why I can only shake my head at the righteousness of
young liberals. It's a sad state of mind, yet they're not even aware of it.
2006-09-03 16:45:56 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Other - Politics & Government
I have always known it this way:
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
Winston Churchill
Some people claim that he couldn't possibly have said it because he left the Conservative party for the liberal party. What they fail to mention is that he returned to the conservative party in 1924 or there around, I'll double check the chronology.
2006-09-03 16:53:00 · answer #1 · answered by scarlettt_ohara 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
People throw around the terms liberal and conservative like an insult, without any real meaning attached to them anymore.
I've had people from both camps say flat out that they don't care what the dictionary defines the words to mean, and don't care whether the target of the label agrees with the label. In other words, the labels are meaningless because they are defined solely by whoever is using them without any inherent meaning other than "I hate you".
If you go with the dictionary definitions, liberals are those who advocate change and growth and tolerance, which conservatives are those who advocate structure and conformity and tradition.
Personally, I think anyone who in growing old forgets how to be tolerant or to welcome change is sad, just as anyone who rejects stability and isn't willing to learn from history is foolish.
I feel sorry if you if you only hold on to exclusively conservative approaches, and have lost the ability to grow and learn, and to understand and tolerate new ways of dealing with the world.
2006-09-03 16:48:41 · answer #2 · answered by coragryph 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
I am going to respond to coragraph. He talked about the literal definitions, but they no longer apply like he keeps saying. Conservatives and liberals are now a label, an assessment of a person's general beliefs. Being conservative does not mean that you can not adapt to new ideas, that is very wrong.
2006-09-04 02:42:17 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't know that Churchill quote. I never had the chance to be a liberal. I've always been a conservative, but a moderate.
2006-09-03 16:48:20 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No; that was George Bernard Shaw who said that and the accurate quote is: Anyone under the age of 30 who has never been a socialist, doesn't have a heart. Anyone over the age of 30 who is still a socialist, doesn't have a brain.
2006-09-03 17:11:53 · answer #5 · answered by Babs 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The original source for that quotation may never be known, but if you are adamant about clinging to ideological labels, I have another quotation for you to consider. It was by the poet, Robert Frost. I know he said it, because I heard him speak it. " I tried not to be too liberal when I was young, because I didn't want to be too conservative when I got old." I think you will discover much wisdom in that.
2006-09-03 17:38:31 · answer #6 · answered by Proud Liberal 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Look quickly in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and didn't find it under Churchill, Sounds like something out of one of Reagan's B Movies.
2006-09-03 17:11:52 · answer #7 · answered by Mister2-15-2 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Im 17. I have always been a concervative. Who cares about ''having a heart'', besides circulation blood arround my body. Having a brain is much more valuable.
2016-05-13 05:44:48 · answer #8 · answered by Jack 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Yes, I have heard this many times atributed to Churchill.
2006-09-03 16:52:17 · answer #9 · answered by big-brother 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Churchill didn't say it. Not leastwise because he was too smart to suggest that you HAVE to be "one or the other."
Anyway, Wikiquote shows it is misattributed to Churchill:
2006-09-03 16:50:59 · answer #10 · answered by Nickster 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋