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To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

Michael Joseph Oakeshott

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Michael Joseph Oakeshott
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More quotes by Michael Joseph Oakeshott

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The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice and though one or other of them may on occasion properly prevail none permanently dominates, and on this account we are free.
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Like Midas, the Rationalist is always in the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything, without transforming it into an abstraction he can never get a square meal of experience.
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Our predicament is not the difficulty of attaining happiness, but the difficult of avoiding the misery to which the pursuit of happiness exposes us.
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For most people, political activity is a secondary activity - that is to say, they have something else to do beside attending to these arrangements. But the activity is one which every member of the group who is not a child nor a lunatic has some part and some responsibility.
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The conjunction of ruling and dreaming generates tyranny.
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It is certain that most who concentrate upon achievement miss life.
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Political action involves mental vulgarity, not merely because it entails the occurrence and support of those who are mentally vulgar, but because of the simplification of human life implied in even the best of it purposes.
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Every human being is born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process of learning.
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In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel.
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