Reform Quotes - Page 3

• 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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• Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but they have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Lying, Moving, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.210, Graphic Arts Books

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• There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of "expediency." There is no such thing as sliding up- hill.In morals the only sliders are backsliders.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Use, Morality, Hills

  Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.43, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The tone and tendency of liberalism...is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform and to make war on the manners and customs of the people under the pretext of progress.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Country, War, Names

  Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield) (1886). “Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield: Collected from His Writings and Speeches”

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• Social questions are too sectional, too topical, too temporal to move a man to the mighty effort which is needed to produce greatpoetry. Prison reform may nerve Charles Reade to produce an effective and businesslike prose melodrama; but it could never produce Hamlet, Faust, or Peer Gynt.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Moving, Men, Effort

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• I own I never really warmed
  To the reformer or reformed.
  And yet conversion has its place
  Not halfway down the scale of grace.

  Robert Frost

  Grace, Scales, Halfway

  Robert Frost (1971). “The poetry of Robert Frost”

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• The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.

  Herman Melville

  Art, Political, Dreamer

  Herman Melville (1987). “Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition”, p.409, Northwestern University Press

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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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• Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Presidential, Political, Movement

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• I will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.

  Joseph Pulitzer

  Wisdom, Party, Independent

  Retirement speech. St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), April 11, 1907.

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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