Does anyone have a reference to an earlier attribution then Winston Churchill?
I would like to find the correct or earliest reference to it, but all searches lead back to Churchill. Cany anyone help?
Interesting quote but I was never a liberal, even as a kid.
I don’t know, but I wasn’t a liberal at 20...
I think Churchill is where you will find your search ending.
Hannity aside, I don’t think Churchill would have used those terms.
I started out in single digit years of age with a reagan-ish point of view.
Then as I aged , i got more and more conservative.
Now I’m middle aged and there are probably less than ten thousand people on the planet further right than I am.
Sorry, I can’t help you out on that quote. All I can say to you is that I think churchill didn’t say it. I remember reading about that quote and all the people it was attributed to. But I don’t remember who it was that really said it first.
It was first said by Francois Guisot, a French monarchist statesman:
“Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.”
(Said in reference to whether France should be a republic or a monarchy.)
It was later adapted by French Premier Georges Clemenceau:
“Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.”
I think the correct quote is:
If you are not a liberal at twenty I would say you had no heart. If you are not a conservative by 40 I would say you had no brain.
It does no good to have a heart with no brains. Most conservatives have both. I was always a conservative except where the death penalty applied. I have since changed my standing on that. LOL!
I think it was my Uncle Eddie just before he fell asleep after Thanksgiving dinner.
I guess I never had a heart.
truer words were never spoken..at the young of 18, I was volunteering for...dare I say it..Carter..YIKES!!!!..then 4 years later I found Rush and was proudly pulling the lever for the Great One..Ronald Reagan.
Yes, Clémenceau...
Otto Von Bismark, I believe.
I knew, even being young when LBJs "Great Society" was created that there are two things that can never change; Fundamental economics, and human nature.
Now, virtually every morning when I wake up and turn on the local news and hear about the latest gang banger shooting or some horrendous child neglect story, I am not surprised. It could have easily been predicted 40 years ago. It is LBJs "Great Society" + 3 generations that we are living with.
If you pay people money for being dysfunctional, you will create more dysfunctional people which means you pay even more money to create even more dysfunctionality.
Be it "Bread and Circuses" in ancient Rome, or the Department of Human Services in 21st Century America --- nothing changes. Economic incentives are the same and people are the same as they were 2000 years ago.
I believe the quote (or some variation of it) was originally coined by Wendell Willkie who was running as the Republican candidate for President against FDR in the 1940 U.S. election. Your quote was as follows: “If you are not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart and if you are not conservative at thirty, you have no brain.” I can dig up the reference to the Willkie quote. But I recall also hearing some time back the quote came from someone other than Willkie, and then reading Willkie as having said it for the first time during the 1940 election in an historical biography of FDR. Recently, I also heard people say the quote was from Churchill (including just a few hours ago in a law school class from my professor). But that’s wrong, the quote definitely came from Wendell Willkie. I’m not sure where the Churchill attribution comes from. And if Churchill had said something like that he certainly would have referred to being a “socialist” since he is from the U.K. and not being a “liberal” which is the U.S. term (although Churchill’s mother was from the U.S.). It may be that only Democrats and liberals would be sufficiently familiar with the source for the quote since it’s most closely associated with the election of FDR — but then again, liberals might not be too anxious to bring the quote up considering its sentiment. Where the attribution to Churchill came from, I just don’t know. But certainly Churchill is an easier historical figure to remember and refer to for any quote rather than trying to recall the name of Wendell Willkie who is now largely unknown and forgotten. I hope that helps.