Reform Quotes

• Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Age, Opinion, Privacy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

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• We need election reform because our elections are being stolen. And these huge powerful voting machine vending companies have privatized the election process in our country.

  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  Country, Powerful, Election Process

  Interview with David Kupfer, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. October 26, 2006.

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• We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society . . . . What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  America, Movement, Today

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• To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Way, Sticks, Crooked

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.190, Courier Corporation

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• Reform is born of need, not pity.

  Rebecca Harding Davis

  Needs, Pity, Born

  Rebecca Harding Davis (2016). “Life in the Iron-Mills”, p.21, Lulu.com

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• A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of power.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Abuse, Revolution, Transfers

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 672-73, speech in the House of Commons, on the Reform Bill, 1922.

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• Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Women, People, History

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

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• Until politics are a branch of science, we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Cutting, Political, Branches

  John B. S. Haldane, John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1945). “Possible Worlds”, p.23, Transaction Publishers

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• Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place.

  Moliere

  Literature, World, Folly

  "The Misanthrope, or the Cantankerous Lover". Comedy by Moliere, 1666.

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• Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Presidential, Political, Movement

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• Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Sarcastic

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 15, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

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• The amelioration of the world cannot be achieved by sacrifices in moments of crisis; it depends on the efforts made and constantly repeated during the humdrum, uninspiring periods, which separate one crisis from another, and of which normal lives mainly consist.

  Aldous Huxley

  Sacrifice, Effort, World

  Aldous Huxley (2002). “Complete Essays: 1939-1956”, Ivan R Dee

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• Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.

  Susan B. Anthony

  World, Women's Suffrage, Casting

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

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• Every reform was once a private opinion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Opinion, Catchy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

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• Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Courage, Peace, Integrity

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

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• Let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Inspirational, Truth, Names

  Letter to the American Woman Suffrage Association, October 1885.

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• People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this; that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.

  John Jay Chapman

  Love, Dog, Hate

  John Jay Chapman (1900). “Practical Agitation”

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• At twenty a man is full of fight and hope. He wants to reform the world. When he is seventy he still wants to reform the world, but he know he can't.

  Rodney Dangerfield

  Time, Fighting, Men

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• A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

  John Stuart Mill

  Life, Party, Order

  'On Liberty' (1859) ch. 2

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• After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land.

  Barack Obama

  Powerful, Law, Land

  "CNN Student News" with Carl Azuz, edition.cnn.com. March 24, 2010.

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• No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

  George Orwell

  Equality, Literature, Revolution

  George Orwell (2003). “1984”, Plume Books

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• The church is always trying to get other people to reform, it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Ideas, Always Trying

  Mark Twain (2016). “A Tramp Abroad”, p.241, Xist Publishing

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• The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Investing, Moments

  Alexis de Tocqueville, François Furet, Francoise Melonio (1998). “The Old Regime and the Revolution, Volume I: The Complete Text”, p.222, University of Chicago Press

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• Experience has two things to teach. The first is that we must correct a great deal and the second, that we must not correct too much.

  Eugene Delacroix

  Two, Too Much, Firsts

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• If there are people who feel that God wants them to change the structures of society, that is something between them and their God. We must serve him in whatever way we are called. I am called to help the individual; to love each poor person. Not to deal with institutions. I am in no position to judge.

  Mother Teresa

  Love, Judging, People

  Mother Teresa (2001). “Mother Teresa: Essential Writings”

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