Irving Kristol

"It requires strength of character to act upon ones ideas; it requires no less strength of character to resist being seduced by them."

"An intellectual may be defined as a man who speaks with general authority about a subject on which he has no particular competence."

"It was a new kind of class war — the people as citizens versus the politicians and their clients in the public sector."

"Nostalgia is one of the legitimate and certainly one of the most enduring of human emotions; but the politics of nostalgia is at best distracting, at worst pernicious."

"Power breeds responsibilities, in international affairs as in domestic -- or even private. To dodge or disclaim these responsibilities is one form of the abuse of power."

"After all, if you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you also have to believe that no one was ever improved by a book (or a play or a movie). You have to believe, in other words, that all art is morally trivial and that, consequently, all education is morally irrelevant. No one, not even a university professor, really believes that."

"Young people, especially, are looking for religion so desperately that they are inventing new ones. They should not have to invent new ones; the old religions are pretty good."

"Joining a radical movement when one is young is very much like falling in love when one is young. The girl may turn out to be rotten, but the experience of love is so valuable it can never be entirely undone by the ultimate disenchantment."

"I have observed over the years that the unanticipated consequences of social action are always more important, and usually less agreeable, than the intended consequences."

"What rules the world is idea, because ideas define the way reality is perceived."

"A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society."

"The liberal paradigm of regulation and license has led to a society where an 18-year-old girl has the right to public fornication in a pornographic movie -- but only if she is paid the minimum wage."