Reactionaries Quotes - Page 2

• These are times when what used to be called liberal is now called radical; what used to be called radical is now called insane; what used to be called reactionary is now called moderate; and what used to be called insane is now called solid, neo-conservative thinking.

  Katrina vanden Heuvel

  Thinking, Insane, Conservative

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• To make things 'perfectly clear' is reactionary and stupefying. The real is not perfectly clear.

  Avital Ronell

  Real, Clear, Not Perfect

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• The enemy will not perish of himself. Neither will the Chinese reactionaries nor the aggressive forces of U.S. imperialism in China step down from the stage of history of their own accord.

  Mao Zedong

  Struggle, Class, Chinese

  Mao Zedong (2017). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works”, p.12, Lulu.com

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• A Christian anarchist has no business belonging to such a reactionary organization [the Catholic Church]. I do not believe in original sin, indulgences, the infallibility of the pope, or obedience to any church official if it is against my conscience. I am not interested in earning "merit" or in being saved by priestly incantation.

  Ammon Hennacy

  Christian, Fear, Believe

  Ammon Hennacy (2010). “The Book of Ammon”, p.475, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• All adventure is now reactionary.

  William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Travel, Adventure, Funny Travel

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• The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Attitude, Issues, Political

  Theodore Roosevelt (1926). “The Works of Theodore Roosevelt”

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• Be reactionary. React to what the market wants. And the market wants one-on-one real time engagement. Now that we have the tools to engage, I'm going to continue fighting for the end user.

  Gary Vaynerchuk

  Real, Fighting, Tools

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• By 'radical,' I understand one who goes too far; by 'conservative,' one who does not go far enough; by 'reactionary,' one who won't go at all.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Political, Doe, Radicalism

  Woodrow Wilson (1916). “Wit and Wisdom of Woodrow Wilson: Extracts from the Public Speeches of the Leader and Interpreter of American Democracy, with Masterpieces of Eloquence”, Best Books

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• All reactionaries are paper tigers.

  Mao Zedong

  Paper, Tigers

  Interview by Anne Louise Strong, Aug. 1946

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• Reactionary: a man walking backwards with his face to the future.

  Aneurin Bevan

  Men, Walking Away, Faces

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• In Russia a man is called reactionary if he objects to having his property stolen and his wife and children murdered.

  Winston Churchill

  Sarcastic, Children, Men

  Winston Churchill (1987). “The Irrepressible Churchill: Stories, Sayings and Impressions of Sir Winston Churchill”, London : Robson Books

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• Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Strong, Powerful, Hard Work

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• A major fault, for example, is the fact that, along with the materialist principle, Darwin introduced into his theory of evolution reactionary Malthusian ideas.

  Trofim Lysenko

  Ideas, Theory Of Evolution, Principles

  "Soviet Biology". Report by Lysenko to the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, www.marxists.org. 1948.

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• The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one's peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.

  Lynne Truss

  Mean, People, Political

  "Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door". Book by Lynne Truss, 2005.

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• Today I want to puke when I hear the word 'radical' applied so slothfully and stupidly to Islamist murderers; the most plainly reactionary people in the world.

  Christopher Hitchens

  People, World, Want

  Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.167, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Revenge, Sensual

  Susan Sontag (1983). “A Susan Sontag reader”, Vintage

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• A revolutionary woman can't have no reactionary man. If he's not about liberation, if he's not about struggle, if he ain't about building a strong Black family, if he ain't about building a strong Black nation, then he ain't about nothing.

  Assata Shakur

  Strong, Struggle, Men

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• Pakistan has to export a lot of uneducated people, many of whom have become infected with the most barbaric reactionary ideas.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Ideas, People, Pakistan

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• I very much dislike doctrinaire liberals - they want to own your minds. And I don't like reactionary conservatives. I like to face issues in terms of conditions and not in terms of someone's inborn political philosophy.

  Carl Albert

  Philosophy, Issues, Political

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• In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles that oppress the black people. They can in no way represent the workers, farmers, revolutionary intellectuals and other enlightened persons who comprise the overwhelming majority of the white people.

  Mao Zedong

  Struggle, Class, Circles

  Mao Zedong (2017). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works”, p.12, Lulu.com

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• A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Backwards, Walking Backwards, Walking

  Radio address, 26 Oct. 1939

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• We oppose the reactionary policies of the U.S. government but we do not oppose the American people. We want to have many good friends in the United States.

  Kim Jong Il

  Best Friend, Good Friend, Government

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The death penalty can be tolerated only by extreme statist reactionaries who demand a state that is so powerful that it has the right to kill.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Demand, Death Penalty

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• Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Tables, Revolutionary, Multiplication

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Lying, Writing

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