Charles C. W. Cooke Quotes

Quotes by and about Charles C. W. Cooke

(Continued from his main entry on the site.)

Cooke: "Show me a picture of two canyons, and the fact that one of them is American will make all the difference. Just because it is American. Is this is so peculiar? Perhaps."

Cooke: "I gripe so vehemently about America because I fear for her future."

Cooke: "True or false, American religion plays a vital and welcome role in civil society, has provided a number of indispensable insights into the human condition, acts as a remarkably effective and necessary check on the ambitions of government and central social-planners, is worthy of respect and measured inquiry on the Burkean grounds that it has endured for this long and been adopted by so many, and has been instrumental in making the United States what it is today."

Cooke: "The New Atheist movement ... has turned the worthwhile writings of some extremely smart people into an organized means by which a cabal of semi-educated twentysomethings might berate the vast majority of the human population and then congratulate one another as to how clever they are."

Cooke: "Calvin Coolidge said 'no' over and over and over again because he understood that the federal government existed for a handful of specific reasons, and that any action it took outside of its carefully delineated tramlines was inherently suspect. Donald Trump's only visible constitutional opinion is that someone strong ought to make sure the trams run on time. There's a word for men like that, and it sure as heck isn't 'conservative.'"

Cooke: "I hope that the Right will stay positive. There is little that is wrong with modern conservatism that cannot be fixed by what is right with modern conservatism - which is, at its heart, a radical and beautiful philosophy that is predicated upon a sensible understanding of human nature and of the limits of man's knowledge. Every great movement needs to take stock of itself now and again, and conservatism is no different. But that's an invitation for hope, not for despair."

Cooke: "Writing is a solitary, slow, and often silent pursuit, during which one struggles to see the forest for the trees."

Cooke: "[When] asked to explain why [you] love [your] fiance, there are ... things that you can rattle off so as not to look clueless. ... But then there is the fact that you just do, and ultimately can say little more than that."