Quotes About The Political Left

#1. The [political] left are people with an imagination and the right are those without an imagination.

Amos Oz

#2. The political left has been weak on protecting society from criminals for more than two centuries.

Thomas Sowell

#3. While the political right may moralize sex, the political left is doing it with food. Food is becoming extremely moralized nowadays, and a lot of it is ideas about purity, about what you're willing to touch, or put into your body.

Jonathan Haidt

#4. The political left, which holds itself as progressive, rational and fact-based, is becoming an enemy of academic inquiry, and a practitioner of thought control on a wide variety of issues. Increasingly, from the left's perspective, there is just one acceptable viewpoint.

David Limbaugh

#5. If you start from a belief that the most knowledgeable person on earth does not have even one percent of the total knowledge on earth, that shoots down social engineering, economic central planning, judicial activism and innumerable other ambitious notions favored by the political left.

Thomas Sowell

#6. No matter whether it's someone from the political left or right, we just need a voice to stand up and defend animal rights.

Brigitte Bardot

#7. What the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.

Thomas Sowell

#8. Political ideologies, too, cannot be defined in terms of assumptions or values, but only as rival versions of the metaphor that SOCIETY IS A FAMILY. The political right likens society to a family commanded by a strict father, the political left to a family cared for by a nurturant parent.

Steven Pinker

#9. I keep wondering if everybody on the political left had someone who they were separated at birth from.

Abigail Disney

#10. The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

Thomas Sowell

#11. ANYONE who studies the history of ideas should notice how much more often people on the political left, more so than others, denigrate and demonize those who disagree with them - instead of answering their arguments.

Thomas Sowell

#12. In the 1920s and 1930s, scientists from both the political left and right would not have found the idea of designer babies particularly dangerous - though, of course, they would not have used that phrase.

Richard Dawkins

#13. Many people on the political left found my work psychologically liberating. They began to say: once you realize that standards emerge historically, then you can see through and discard all the norms to which we have been falsely enslaved.

Stanley Fish

#14. What is especially disturbing about the political left is that they seem to have no sense of the tragedy of the human condition. Instead, they tend to see the problems of the world as due to other people not being as wise or as noble as themselves.

Thomas Sowell

#15. Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#16. My mum is very political - left wing - and my dad was in the advertising business. They were both from the East Coast: Boston and New York City, respectively.

Joan Cusack

#17. Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means ... the need to be left. I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Kingsley Amis

#18. No president in modern times has come to power with less political experience or less managerial experience. On the other hand, no president has come to power with a clearer record of political extremism. As senator, Barack Obama had the most left-wing voting record in the Senate ...

Bob Tyrrell

#19. In the 1970s, 'The Boys on the Bus' exposed how a clubby pack of male political reporters ruled the road to the White House and shaped the news. Four decades later, an outsider gal from Alaska has commandeered the 2012 media bus - and left Beltway journalism insiders eating her dust.

Michelle Malkin

#20. I'm a political analyst. I'm a political wonk. I read everything I can get my hands on as a contributor to the 'Weekly Standard.' Of course I read that. I read the 'National Review' on the right. I read 'Mother Jones' on the left. If I want a good laugh, I'll watch MSNBC or read 'The Nation.'

Michael Ramirez

#21. I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

Andre Dubus III

#22. The fact that Obama is getting criticism from the left and the right might reflect his understanding of the underlying political dynamics.

Ron Fournier

#23. What if the new political spectrum has on one side those people who want to be left alone, those who want to be free, those who don't hurt people or take their stuff, and on the other extreme of this new scale stands anyone who wants to use government power to tell you how to live your life?

Matt Kibbe

#24. Comrade, your statement is factually incorrect."
"Yes, it is. But it is politically correct."
(The Rise of Political Correctness)

Angelo Codevilla

#25. The point of Political Correctness is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. (The Rise of Political Correctness)

Angelo Codevilla

#26. I don't think Fox News or Rush Limbaugh need Clinton it turns out. I think there's a hunger out there for - whether it's on the left or right - a more lively and provocative type of political journalism. I think Salon and Fox on the other side have both benefited from that.

David Talbot

#27. I believe it is imperative to see modern English grammar as a rich and diverse linguistic system deposited on our [England's] shores 1,500 years ago, and left with us unweakened, though substantially changed by the social and political events of the intervening period.

Robert Burchfield

#28. Certainly on a political and a legislative level, Bill Clinton was effective, but the example that he ultimately left, I think for posterity, tragically, is going to begin with that single paragraph lead with the White House intern.

Joe Eszterhas

#29. Time to pull the plug on the coma of the left, right paradigm

Dean Cavanagh

#30. The great twin political problems of the age are the brutality of the right, and the dishonesty of the left.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

#31. As far as the political, military, and economic interests of the world's powers go, (Rwanda) might as well be Mars. In fact, Mars is probably of greater strategic concern. But Rwanda, unlike Mars, is populated by human beings, and when Rwanda had a genocide, the world's powers left Rwanda to it.

Philip Gourevitch

#32. At 'SNL,' I wrote political stuff, but I never felt the show should have an axe to grind. But when I left in '95, I could let my own beliefs out.

Al Franken

#33. Everybody in the CIMS database has a number, from minus 15 to plus 15. If you're plus 15, you're on the right of the political spectrum. If you are minus 15 you are on the left of the political spectrum. You are a pinko, leftie, environmentalist, academic probably,

Mark Bourrie

#34. I have never really thought that the Left was much in 'array' as far as political purposes were concerned.

Noam Chomsky

#35. We on the left have forgotten that the question is not how do you get good people to rule, most people who rule are mediocre at best and usually venal. The question is how do we make those in power frightened of us and not be seduced by formal political processes.

Chris Hedges

#36. I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.

Oscar Wilde

#37. Our world is utterly saturated with fear. We fear being attacked by religious extremists, both foreign and domestic. We fear the loss of political rights, a loss of privacy, or a loss of freedom. We fear being injured, robbed or attacked, being judged by others, or neglected, or left unloved.

Brendan Myers

#38. The trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there's too much liberal bias ... There's too much tilt toward the left-wing agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much pandering to liberal candidates and causes.

William Kristol

#39. I think I developed a culture of healthy skepticism of claims of certainty on any side of the aisle. A sort of boldness in using economics no matter where it leads you in political circles, you know, rather than worrying about being left-wing or right-wing or biased or this or that.

David Plotz

#40. I therefore believe that the politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken?

Roy Jenkins

#41. In college I studied '60s and '70s radicalism, student activism, forms of political violence, groups like the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the New Left.

Marisha Pessl

#42. Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice, but I denounce political extremism, of the left or the right, based on duplicity, falsehood, fear, violence and threats when they endanger liberty.

George W. Romney

#43. I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government's policy towards people of color.

Assata Shakur

#44. I think the process of being hopeful, being really opportunity oriented, not just in rhetoric but in action, showing that no one get's left behind, not just by talking about it but by doing it, I think is really a key [to political success].

John Kasich

#45. The American people want to pay attention to serious ideas again. Our founding was built by people who were political philosophers, and we need to get back to that, away from this kind of cheap political rhetoric of Right and Left.

Dave Brat

#46. Syriza is what it is: a radical, left-wing party that feels the pulse of the times, knows what's at stake, and is after a wide consensus and unity for political change in Greece. This is something that departs from the narrow limits of the radical left.

Alexis Tsipras

#47. The Left has failed to understand the extent to which its intolerant, often coercive, approach to issues that permit good-willed disagreement has turned off voters who might otherwise be sympathetic to their general program.

Ian Tuttle

#48. Let's face it. Leftism is the political form of evil. And the left largely controls the modern West. Where, then, does that leave us all?

Lawrence Auster

#49. For me, I am left leaning when it comes to health and education, on the right when it comes to defense. So I don't know where I come on the political spectrum. And I think this the challenge that a lot of Jordanians have to deal with.

Abdallah II Of Jordan

#50. The letter writers span the spectrum from left to right. Members say they don't want this to become a partisan political issue. In fact, there are reasons administration officials have been cautious in making a genocide declaration.

Tom Gjelten

#51. I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.

William Hague

#52. The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it

Aneurin Bevan

#53. The Muslim world and its subset the countries of the Middle East have been left behind in the marathon of political, economic and human development. For that, there is a tendency to blame others as the primary cause.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

#54. Don't you understand anything? Isn't it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That's how we get things done. Of course we're non-political. The real power always is.

C.S. Lewis

#55. Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.

Tony Benn

#56. Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.

Doris Lessing

#57. The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right-it lies in rejecting conventional political categories.

Christopher Lasch

#58. If a dictator takes up my ideas, the resulting town will survive the political system that commissioned it and stand as a social good. Besides, modernism rather than classicism has dominated the architecture of totalitarian regimes of both the left and right.

Leon Krier

#59. Unquestionably, American political rhetoric can be repugnant, and the Right can certainly be as guilty as the Left.

John Podhoretz

#60. This has been the left's technique. The technique is to portray a political enemy of the left as this outrageous caveman or whatever decrepit form of humanity that you can describe, and then assume that everybody else agrees, and then cover the story as though everybody agrees.

Rush Limbaugh

#61. And thirdly, the FDA occasionally does some genuine public good with whatever energies it has left over after serving the vested political and commercial interest of its first two activities.

G. Edward Griffin

#62. Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.

Hannah Arendt

#63. If not met promptly and decidedly, the two portions of the Union will gradually become thoroughly alienated, when no alternative will be left to us, as the weaker of the two, but to sever all political ties or sink down into abject submission.

John C. Calhoun

#64. The Greek Civil War led to three decades of illegality for the Left, which had to operate under front organisations. The Cold War entrenched in power - backed by the US and Britain - a monarchist, authoritarian right for whom political violence was customary.

Anonymous

#65. What is especially irritating about the whole abortion debate is the way the subject has been used as a political football by those on both the right and the left of the political aisle.

Chuck Baldwin

#66. For if our bodies aren't our own,
And justice isn't ours,
And our love is just a sin,
And voices by the people
Are no longer for the people,
What have we left to lose?

Phar West Nagle

#67. You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education.

Bob Black

#68. Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.

James F. Cooper

#69. I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible means of political and social degradation left in the world.

Charles Dickens

#70. I am a woman that defends animals, right, left, and in the centre. Animals aren't political.

Brigitte Bardot

#71. What I've found is that there is a tremendous interest in these issues, across the political spectrum, sort of left-right terms we used to describe people don't really hold here exactly.

Robert McChesney

#72. The left-right political dichotomy serves liberalism by not challenging it. Democracy sustains the status quo by offering the illusion of choice with no choice. Genuine opposition can only emerge if there is an alternative story with which to counter the current mythos.

John Dunn

#73. Every political structure, new or old, left to itself develops stabilizing forces which stand in the way of constant transformation and expansion. Therefore all political bodies appear to be temporary obstacles when they are seen as part of an eternal stream of growing power.

Hannah Arendt

#74. Politically I am neither left nor right! And this kind of political-ethical standpoint
being in the middle
usually brings about seclusion and isolation! But now I do not mind it anymore and, instead, I work more and more in my self-made solitude!

Javad Alizadeh

#75. American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a lot to answer for here. There's been a drift toward very fragmenting tendencies among left groups, toward this sort of identity politics.

Noam Chomsky

#76. the Los Angeles Times surmised that "hippies, property owners, . . . and police are involved in a conflict with social overtones that far transcend Venice." The police hated the hippies, "whom they regarded as wastrels infiltrated by hard-core criminals and left-wing political extremists.

John McMillian

#77. For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their 'freedom deficit' signaling the political underdevelopment that accompanied many other economic and social maladies.

Elliott Abrams

#78. Nor should we exclude the possibility that Islamic terrorism may begin to make common cause with Western political extremists of the far Left and far Right.

Richard Perle

#79. Governments, political parties, pressure groups, and the bureaucrats of the educational hierarchy think they can avoid the inevitable consequences of unsuitable measures by boycotting and silencing the independent economists. But truth persists and works, even if nobody is left to utter it.

Ludwig Von Mises

#80. My political sentiments inclined toward the left and emphasized the socialist aspects every bit as much as nationalist ones.

Adolf Eichmann

#81. You get these insurgent movements of populism, left and right. An insurgent movement of populism took my political party over in the UK for example.

Tony Blair

#82. Think about the precedents you are setting. It's the Left that runs the world on reckless emotionalism. Don't join.

Michelle Malkin

#83. It's time for somebody to lead all of America's niggers . all the people who feel left out of the political process.

Ron Dellums

#84. In our national discourse and in pursuing our national agenda, we must never leave anyone behind. We must reach out to the many who may have been disaffected and left confused by political games, deceit and showmanship. The people first must transcend every level of society.

Najib Razak

#85. The decision to join or not join a service union, political party or other organization should be left up to the individual. No such organization has the right to take money out of the pockets of state workers without their proper consent.

Matt Blunt

#86. Ward Churchill might be more valuable to the opponents of the academic left employed than unemployed. Above all, he can serve as a living window into the intellectual, moral, and political bankruptcy of the left.

Mort Kondracke

#87. A wingnut is someone on the far-right wing or far-left wing of the political spectrum - the professional partisans, the unhinged activists and the paranoid conspiracy theorists. They're the people who always try to divide rather than unite us.

John Avlon

#88. Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest.

David Ogilvy

#89. Using official government resources to help bankroll an explicit political agenda - whether on the right or left - is flat out wrong.

Gary Ackerman

#90. A lot of political people, especially people on the left, have forgotten the importance of humor as an incredible weapon, and a vehicle through which to affect change.

Michael Moore

#91. We are hammered 24/7 with the "far left" and "far right" points of view, pounding us, beating us upside the head with purely political theatrics in order to make us believe it's real. It's not real. It's a con!

Bruce McDonald

#92. The left has been able to destroy conservatives, dispatch conservatives, to ruin conservatives simply on the basis of accusing them or illustrating them supposedly violating political correctness, by virtue of exposing what they think or say.

Rush Limbaugh

#93. Even the most left-wing politicians worship wealth creation - as the political-action-committee collection plate is passed.

P. J. O'Rourke

#94. People didn't vote left or right in the election. They voted for putting an end to all the primitive political history.

Fatos Nano

#95. Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22-out-of-30 top al-Qaida leaders who've been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that.

Barack Obama

#96. Politics colours everything, and anyone who wants change is necessarily political. As an environmental campaigner more or less since I left school in the early '90s, I have always been involved in lobbying, campaigning and pushing for changes.

Zac Goldsmith

#97. Global warming is a political issue. It is as much a political issue to the left as abortion is. It's as big a political issue as health care is.

Rush Limbaugh

#98. The law is too important to be left to the lawyers, to paraphrase Georges Clemenceau about war and generals. We laymen know too little about our Constitution and think too superficially about its influence on the qualities of American life. Civic duty requires more.

David K. Shipler

#99. The Left/Right scale is a misleading way of comparing political systems. It doesn't measure anything.

Marshall Fritz

#100. Essentially I see the new atheism as largely part of the crisis of the left. Having failed to carry through its agenda in relation to political and economic life it's rounding on religion, ignoring the fact that, in some key respects, many believers are likely to share leftist aspirations.

George Pattison