Political Change Quotes

• The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose it unless fundamental political changes occur.

  James Bovard

  Political, Liberty, Saving

  James Bovard (2016). “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty”, p.7, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

  Doug Larson

  Change, Keys, Cities

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• Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party

  Winston Churchill

  Leadership, Witty, Party

  Winston Churchill (2001). “The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill”, Michael O'Mara Books

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• Political changes and reforms do not usually favor the general populace. They benefit those who are positioned to best organize and advocate for their policies.

  Joel Miller

  Political, Reform, Benefits

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• Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Character, Order, Political

  Whitney v. California (concurring opinion) (1927) See OliverWendell Holmes, Jr. 29

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• Believe me, the intellectual revolution is going on, and that has to come first before you see the political changes. That's where I'm very optimistic.

  Ron Paul

  Believe, Optimistic, Political

  "'This Week' Transcript: Ron Paul". abcnews.go.com. February 05, 2012.

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• Significant and seemingly impossible social and political change happens more often than we think, and it happens more rapidly than we realize. Even the most momentous change is always possible if one finds the right way to make it happen.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Thinking, Political, Way

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• The genuine history of mankind is the history of ideas. It is
  ideas that distinguish man from all other beings. Ideas
  engender social institutions, political changes, technologi-
  cal methods of production, and all that is called economic
  conditions.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Ideas, Political

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• A discourse for broad-based political change is crucial for developing a politics that speaks to a future that can provide sustainable jobs, decent health care, quality education and communities of solidarity and support for young people.

  Henry Giroux

  Jobs, People, Political

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Where there is a sufficient social movement of self-reliant communities, there can be political change. There must be political change.

  Jerry Brown

  Self, Community, Political

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• Acting alone, minorities can never achieve the majorities necessary for political change.

  Hillary Clinton

  Political, Acting, Majority

  International Human Rights Day Address at Palais des Nations, delivered 6 December 2011, Geneva, Switzerland

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• I think it's hard sometimes for people to grapple with the real-life consequences of political change. I think that, we as a culture, feel like politics is one sector of our lives that can feel apart from our personal lives and the cultural things we're interested in and the sports we watch. It feels like this separate, different thing.

  Ben H. Winters

  Sports, Real, Thinking

  Source: www.slate.com

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• I witnessed a lot of violence, and I found myself asking the question: Do you ever use violence to try to bring about political change?

  Mairead Corrigan

  Political, Trying, Asking

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• I have a somewhat sneaky way of effecting political change.

  Edward Snowden

  Political, Way, Sneaky

  Source: www.thenation.com

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• Management is the gate through which social and economic and political change, indeed change in every direction, is diffused though society.

  Robert McNamara

  Political, Management, Economic

  "Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment and the Crisis of Development". Book by Bruce Rich, p. 83, 1994.

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• Although the connections are not always obvious, personal change is inseparable from social and political change.

  Harriet Lerner

  Political, Growth, Connections

  Harriet Goldhor Lerner (1996). “Life Preservers: Staying Afloat in Love and Life”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear.

  Thomas Huxley

  Political, Liberty, Politics

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.425, Cambridge University Press

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• It would be a huge mistake to abandon democracy promotion. Peaceful political change has been enormously successful in the past years in Eastern European countries as well as in countries like South Korea, South Africa, Chile and Indonesia. However, if possible, the use of force is something to avoid except in cases where genocide is threatened, like Bosnia or Libya or with regimes that threaten our security, like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

  Paul Wolfowitz

  Country, Mistake, Successful

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Political change does not really lead to any fundamental change for most of the people, indeed because politics (even if it calls itself democratic) is elitist and barred to most people, so it is necessary to look to new movements outside of "politics."

  Nigel Gibson

  People, Political, Doe

  "Frantz Fanon and the Arab Uprisings: An Interview with Nigel Gibson". Interview with Yasser Munif, www.middleeastdigest.com. August 17, 2012.

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• Political change and academic change and intellectual change are obviously crucial, but they don't necessarily change society. They can change a particular class and give everybody in that class great arguments, but that doesn't necessarily translate into the body of the culture.

  Eve Ensler

  Class, Giving, Political

  Interview with Chantal Pierrat, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• It is the first time in the history of Rwanda that political change in the highest leadership of the country has taken place in peace and security.

  Paul Kagame

  Change, Country, Taken

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• People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely.

  Steven Pinker

  Acceptance, Long, People

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• We also have to engage - and I think this is important - in national politics because there is no way to address questions of this scale in the short time that we have to address them without engaging in real political change.

  Bill McKibben

  Real, Thinking, Political

  Source: theotherjournal.com

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• My feeling is that most political poetry is preaching to the choir, and that the people who are going to make the political changes in our lives are not the people who read poetry, unfortunately. Poetry not specifically aimed at political revolution, though, is beneficial in moving people toward that kind of action, as well as other kinds of action. A good poem makes me want to be active on as many fronts as possible.

  John Ashbery

  Moving, Political Revolution, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• If I was writing a lifestyle book it would have the same advice on every page, and you’d know it all already. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables, and live your whole life in every way as well as you can: exercise regularly as part of your daily routine, avoid obesity, don’t drink too much, don’t smoke, and don’t get distracted from the real, basic, simple causes of ill health. But as we will see, even these things are hard to do on your own, and in reality require wholesale social and political changes.

  Ben Goldacre

  Real, Book, Writing

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