The absence of utopianism in ...

The absence of utopianism in the Constitution, law, and traditional political culture has been ... important in limiting expectations concerning what can be achieved by politics. The history of the last two centuries confirms what the framers of the Constitution understood: that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the search for unalloyed virtue in public life leads to unalloyed terror.
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 Jeane Kirkpatrick

Quotes from the same author

For all their faults, right-wing authoritarian regimes more easily accept democratic reforms than left-wing totalitarian states.
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 Jeane Kirkpatrick
Solidarity was the movement that turned the direction of history, I think.
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 Jeane Kirkpatrick
When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich - convinced it could shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.
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 Jeane Kirkpatrick
When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.
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 Jeane Kirkpatrick
Decades, if not centuries are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits. In Britain, the road [to democratic government] took seven centuries to traverse.
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 Jeane Kirkpatrick