Reformers Quotes - Page 4

• It is often said by reformers that government should be conducted upon business principles.

  John Buchanan Robinson

  Government, Principles, Should

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• Hillary Clinton failed to mention that her agreement with a precipitous withdrawal and declaration of victory in 2011 helped left swaths of territory and weaponry from ISIS. She failed to mention that she described Bashar al-Assad as a positive reformer and opened an American embassy. She failed to mention a complete failure strategy in Libya, which now is enabling ISIS to move into Libya.

  Carly Fiorina

  Moving, Isis, Agreement

  "Fiorina: Trump is a Clinton Christmas gift, I'm the lump of coal; US doing enough to defeat ISIS?". "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.foxnews.com. December 20, 2015.

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• The reformer is one who with clarion voice will call the ministry back to it's knees.

  Edward McKendree Bounds

  Voice, Ministry, Knees

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• I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sympathy, Morning, Spring

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.194, Penguin

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• Anyone who would attempt the task of felling a virgin forest with a penknife would probably feel the same paralysis of despair that the reformer feels when confronted with existing school systems.

  Ellen Key

  Education, School, Despair

  Ellen Key (2016). “The century of the child”, p.99, Ellen Key

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• Agitate! Agitate! Ought to be the motto of every reformer. Agitation is the opposite of stagnation - the one is life, the other death.

  Ernestine Rose

  Opposites, Atheism, Agitation

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• The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.

  George Bernard Shaw

  World

  "The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations". Book by Evan Esar, p. 178, 1949.

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• Should [reformers] attempt more than the established habits of the people are ripe for, they may lose all and retard indefinitely the ultimate object of their aim.

  Thomas Jefferson

  People, May, Revolution

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• In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old.

  Alfred Marshall

  Hero, People, Firefighter

  Alfred Marshall (2006). “Elements of Economics of Industry: Being the First Volume of Elements of Economics”, p.7, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Unable to maintain their government-granted monopoly, the powerful railroad
  interests turned to government to do the regulating and price-fixing which they
  were unable to do themselves. In fact, the pressure that induced Congress to
  enact the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 did not come from reformers bemoaning
  abuses by the powerful railroad interests; it came from the railroad interests
  themselves, asking Congress to shield them against the harsh winds of
  competition.

  Dan Smoot

  Powerful, Government, Wind

  Dan Smoot (1973). “The BUSINESS END of Government”

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• As long as the opposition believes the world will stand with Ukraine's democrat reformers, they will have the leverage and the courage to establish a legitimate republic under the leadership of Viktor Yushchenko.

  Bob Schaffer

  Courage, Believe, Ukraine

  "Go Orange!". National Review Interview, www.nationalreview.com. November 30, 2004.

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• X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Long, Letters, Lasts

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.137, Courier Corporation

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• We love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, and reformers. Our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys and Asburys, etc... We will write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch carefully over the first drop of our own.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Memories, Writing, Blood

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• A reformer knows neither how to do nor to undo.

  Jose Bergamin

  Knows

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• The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches.

  William Graham Sumner

  Fingers

  William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.100, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.

  John Buchan

  Past, Giving, Darkness

  John Buchan (1923). “Great Britain: The Nations of To-day : a New History of the World”

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• We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.

  Will Durant

  Night, Government, Hands

  Will Durant (1929). “The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny”, Garden City, N.Y. : Garden City Publishing Company

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• Reformers have long observed city people loitering on busy corners, hanging around in candy stores and bars and drinking soda popon stoops, and have passed a judgment, the gist of which is: "This is deplorable! If these people had decent homes and a more private or bosky outdoor place, they wouldn't be on the street!" That judgment represents a profound misunderstanding of cities. It makes no more sense than to drop in at a testimonial banquet in a hotel and conclude that if these people had wives who could cook, they would give their parties at home.

  Jane Jacobs

  Party, Drinking, Home

  Jane Jacobs (1989). “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Vintage

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• A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Age, Honey

  Henry David Thoreau (1993). “Civil Disobedience, and Other Essays”, p.63, Courier Corporation

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• conceit is the devil's horse, and reformers generally ride it when they are in a hurry.

  Margaret Deland

  Horse, Devil, Conceit

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• There is one Islam, unreformed, but three sets of Muslims. Medina, Mecca, and. Dissidents, reformers, whatever you want to call them. The first group are the extremists and fundamentalists, the second the great mass of Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace, and the third are reformers.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Islam, Groups, Three

  "The Interview: Ayaan Hirsi Ali on reforming Islam". Interview with Brian Bethune, www.macleans.ca. April 13, 2015.

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• The majority, being satisfied with the ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think would be best for mankind.

  John Stuart Mill

  Acceptance, Thinking, Atheism

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.101, Cambridge University Press

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• My theories explain, but cannot slow the decline of a great civilization. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Civilization, Decline, Theory

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• Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

  Che Guevara

  Brother, Fighting, Order

  Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.52, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• Public reformers had need first practice on their own hearts that which they purpose to try on others.

  Charles I of England

  Heart, Practice, Trying

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