Reform Quotes - Page 32

• Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  World, Thyself

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• None more deceive themselves than they who think their religion is true and genuine, thought it refines not their spirits and reforms not their lives.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Thinking, Religion, Spirit

  Benjamin Whichcote (1753). “Moral and religious aphorisms collected from the manuscript papers of the reverend and learned Doctor Whichcote; and published in 1703, by Dr. Jeffery. Now re-published, with very large additions, ... by Samuel Salter, ... To which are added, Eight letter”, p.95

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• My temperament and habit had always kept me rather in the middle of the road; in politics as well as in social reform I had been for "the best possible." But now I was pushed far toward the left on the subject of the war and I became gradually convinced that in order to make the position of the pacifist clear it was perhaps necessary that at least a small number of us should be forced into an unequivocal position.

  Jane Addams

  War, Small Numbers, Order

  Jane Addams, Jean Bethke Elshtain (2002). “The Jane Addams Reader”, p.317, Basic Books

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• Of course, such judicial misconstruction theoretically can be cured by constitutional amendment. But the period of gestation of a constitutional amendment, or of any law reform, is reckoned in decades usually; in years, at least. And, after all, as the Court itself asserted in overruling the minimum-wage cases, it may not be the Constitution that was at fault.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Gestation Period, Years, Law

  "The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy: A Study in Crisis in American Power Politics". Book by Robert H. Jackson, p. 297, 1941.

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• There must be renewed recognition that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police; this means there must be free play for so-called subversive ideas - every idea subverts the old to make way for the new. To shut off subversion is to shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war.

  I. F. Stone

  War, Mean, Play

  I. F. Stone (2009). “The Best of I.F. Stone”, p.27, PublicAffairs

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• No amount of rationalisation, reform, or Freudian analysis can quite annul the thrill of the chimney-corner whisper or the lonely wood.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Lonely, Analysis, Thrill

  H. P. Lovecraft (2014). “Complete Collection Of H. P. Lovecraft - 150 eBooks With 100+ Audiobooks (Complete Collection Of Lovecraft's Fiction, Juvenilia, Poems, Essays And Collaborations)”, p.1055, Ageless Reads

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• All men now allow that if any human power could have stemmed the avalanche of the French Revolution, it would have been the reforms of Turgot.

  Evelyn Beatrice Hall

  Men, Avalanches, Revolution

  "The Friends of Voltaire". Book by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906.

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• Seeing ongoing political reforms that have a real impact on people all over the world is extremely satisfying. But we want every person who's having a dispute with their kindergarten to feel confident about sending us material.

  Julian Assange

  Real, Impact, People

  "Inside WikiLeaks’ Leak Factory". Interview with David Kushner, www.motherjones.com. April 6, 2010.

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• While our responses to the problems facing us immediately are also important, we cannot forget to carve out the future of Japan ten or one hundred years into the future. In doing so, we must not resort to superficial measures. Instead, it is imperative to engage in true reforms that ascertain the state of society we seek to achieve.

  Shinzo Abe

  Japan, Years, Important

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• A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Fall, Men, Hands

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.1216, Delphi Classics

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• Devolutionary reform will not provide a factory, a machine or jobs, build a school, train a doctor or put a pound on pensions.

  Neil Kinnock

  Jobs, School, Doctors

  South Wales Echo, November 01, 1975.

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• The reform of a college English department cuts no ice down at the corner garage.

  Camille Paglia

  Cutting, College, Ice

  Camille Paglia (2018). “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism”, p.51, Canongate Books

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• I worry that even those who want to reform are not quite sure how to go about it. There is so much to be done.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Worry, Done, Want

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• The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Attitude, Views, Order

  "Freedom from Fear". Book by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• I cannot... perceive any ground for hoping that any practical good would, while the funding system exists in its present extent, result from the adoption of any of those projects, which have professed to have in view what is called Parliamentary Reform... when the funding system, from whatever cause, shall cease to operate upon civil and political liberty, there will be no need of projects for parliamentary reform. The parliament will, as far as shall be necessary, then reform itself.

  William Cobbett

  Views, Adoption, Political

  Political Register, March 15, 1806.

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• There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors.

  Noah Webster

  Language, Influence, Made

  Noah Webster (1977). “A collection of essays and fugitiv writings 1790”, Scholars Facsimilies & Reprint

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• I start from the supposition that the world is topsyturvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power, that the wealth is distributed in this country and the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth. I start from the supposition that we don't have to say too much about this because all we have to do is think about the state of the world today and realize that things are all upside down.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Thinking, Jail

  Howard Zinn (1997). “The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy”, p.404, Seven Stories Press

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• Reformed rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like Islam, radicalized Islam in a way, to where it is just - radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics. When you look at the Reform Judaism, it is more about politics.

  Glenn Beck

  Political, Islam, Looks

  "Glenn Beck Smears 35 Percent Of American Jews" by Jeremy Schulman, www.mediamatters.org. February 22, 2011.

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• Everybody has the right to speak up in a democracy. We would be in trouble as a society if there wasn't a constant pressure to make reforms and to be just. Sometimes as prime minister, when i was caught up in a really loud demonstration, I used to say to myself that I deserved it because of all the demonstrations I myself had organized as a student against Duplessis.

  Jean Chretien

  Democracy, Would Be, Pressure

  "My Years As Prime Minister". Book by Jean Chrétien, 2007.

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• Serious research and development efforts are required to produce technologies, strategies, organizations, and trained personnel who can go into failed states, work with our allies and friends, and promote the political and economic reforms that will meet popular needs and reduce the sources of terrorism and conflict.

  Wesley Clark

  Technology, Research And Development, Organization

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• [The right] may never bring prayer back to schools, but it has rescued all manner of rightwing economic nostrums from history's dustbins. Having rolled back the landmark economic reforms of the sixties (the war on poverty) and those of the thirties (labor law, agricultural price supports, banking regulation), its leaders now turn their guns on the accomplishments of the earliest years of progressivism (Woodrow Wilson's estate tax; Theodore Roosevelt's anti-trust measures). With a little more effort, the backlash may well repeal the entire twentieth century.

  Thomas Frank

  Prayer, War, School

  "What's the Matter with Kansas?". Book by Thomas Frank, 2004.

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• They, the conservatives, are the real outsides, they tell us, gazing with disgust upon the ludicrous manners of the high and mighty. Or, they tell us, they are rough-and-ready proles, laughing along with us at the efforts of our social "betters" to reform and improve us. That they are often, in fact, people of privilege doing their utmost to boost the fortunes of a political party that is the traditional tool of the privileged is a contradiction that does not trouble them.

  Thomas Frank

  Real, Party, Laughing

  "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America". Book by Thomas Frank, June1, 2004.

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• In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousness. Just as the upright politician should hold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realize that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughingstock among decent men.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Reality, Men, Names

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses”, p.22, Courier Corporation

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• Among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Wise, Fashion, Men

  Theodore Roosevelt (1899). “The Rough Riders: An Autobiography”, p.461, Library of America

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• I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in, or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president.

  John McCain

  Running, Ambition, Political

  John McCain, Mark Salter (2002). “Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir”, p.353, Random House

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