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Liberal comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why that word had to be erased from our political lexicon.

Gore Vidal

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Gore Vidal
Age: 86 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 3
Died: 2012
Died: July 31
Actor
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Politician
Prosaist
West Point
New York
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Gor Vidal
Cameron Kay
Eugene Luther Vidal
Edgar Box
Katherine Everard
Eugene Vidal
Free
Erased
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Extend
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Latin
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Liberal
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Democracy
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More quotes by Gore Vidal

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The word heterosexual is an adjective, the word homosexual is an adjective. They describe an activity. Of course there's a homosexual activity of course there's a heterosexual activity. But there's no homosexual person. There's no heterosexual person. Everybody is everything.
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I spend most of my time in California. I feel I am fueled by rage and by the political climate there. I am angry most of the time when I am there, which might be unbearable for someone else, but for me it's fuel for my writing.
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In matters of faith, inconvenient evidence is always suppressed while contradictions go unnoticed.
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Never have varmints, only grandvarmints.
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I'm devoted to promiscuity, and always have been. I believe the more you do, the better it is for you. I'm a great health nut, and sex is, I think, absolutely marvelous for the whole system tones you up.
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Everybody likes a bit of gossip to some point, as long as it's gossip with some point to it. That's why I like history. History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.
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The whole point to American journalism is what ought to be true is true.
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Can you imagine having a love affair going on and on decade after decade? Macabre.
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One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.
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I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add.
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A superficial education would be worse than none. But a full education would open every man's eyes to the nature of human existence.
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Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
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Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress. Congress hasn't declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet we've been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth
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I'm a true reactionary. Like all patricians, I'd like to restore the original republic, which we lost 40 years ago when Harry Truman imposed the national security state on us, which has kept us at war, hot or cold, for almost half a century, and it's got us $4 trillion into debt.
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One of the most fascinating aspects of politician-watching is trying to determine to what extent any politician believes what he says.
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Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the Praetorian Guard ruled.
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I do not much care for nature, and believe that flowers belong in vases rather than loose and untidy on the ground.
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A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is ability to articulate human relationships.
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We must declare ourselves, become known allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
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No reform ever came from the bottom, and it was always people who understood how the ruling class worked who turned out to be the reformers.
Gore Vidal