Reform Quotes - Page 21

• The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Discovery, Vices, Saint

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.411, Library of America

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• This goes back to the main challenge we are facing, because Europe at the moment is not competitive. We have many imbalances and my big worry is that we will slow down in Europe in terms of fiscal consolidations and reforms, whilst we have to step up.

  Mark Rutte

  Europe, Worry, Challenges

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• The AMA puts the lives and well being of the American citizens well below it's own special interest...It deserves to be ignored, rejected, and forgotten. No amount of historical gymnastics can hide the public record of AMA opposition to virtually every major health reform in the past 50 years....The AMA has turned into a propaganda organ purveying 'medical politics' for deceiving the Congress, the people, and the doctors of America themselves.

  Edward Kennedy

  Dark, Gymnastics, Past

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• You do not reform a world by ignoring it.

  George H. W. Bush

  World

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• The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.

  Andrew Greeley

  Leadership, Ice, Church

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• Bourgeois society is not fundamentally opposed to the bourgeois women's movement, which is proven by the fact that in various states reforms of private and public laws concerning women have been initiated.

  Clara Zetkin

  Women, Law, Movement

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• The Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone. Answering why he had not implemented organizational reforms after five months when 'God created the universe in seven day

  Kofi Annan

  Work, Able, Months

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• For a long time I was ashamed of the way I lived. Did I reform, you ask? No. I'm not ashamed anymore.

  Mae West

  Psychics, Long, Empowerment

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• It was just one year ago that the world saw this new, invigorated United Nations in action as this Council stood fast against aggression and stood for the sacred principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter. And now it's time to step forward again, make the internal reforms, accelerate the revitalization, accept the responsibilities necessary for a vigorous and effective United Nations. I want to assure the members of this Council and the Secretary-General, the United Nations can count on our full support in this task.

  George H. W. Bush

  Responsibility, Years, America

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• The one-sided exploitation of existential guilt is thought reform's trump card, and perhaps its most important source of emotional influence over its participants. Revolving around it are issues most decisive to thought reform's outcome.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Emotional, Issues, Guilt

  Robert Jay Lifton (2012). “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'brainwashing' in China”, p.78, UNC Press Books

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• The era of wild apples will soon be over. I wander through old orchards of great extent, now all gone to decay, all of native fruit which for the most part went to the cider mill. But since the temperance reform and the general introduction of grafted fruit, no wild apples, such as I see everywhere in deserted pastures, and where the woods have grown up among them, are set out. I fear that he who walks over these hills a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Apples, Decay, Cider

  Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.77, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Please be assured that as we move along through the implementation of health insurance reform, making sure that we find efficiencies within the existing system, is foremost on the President's mind.

  Valerie Jarrett

  Moving, Mind, President

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• In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment.

  Zell Miller

  Military, Government, Years

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• I'm really not one about reform, I'm about tearing it down, revolution

  Aja Monet

  Revolution

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• I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.

  Dianne Feinstein

  Believe, Medical Insurance, Care

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• Pension reform can be hard to talk about. In the long run, reform now means fewer demands for layoffs and less draconian measures in the future. It's in the best interest of all Californians to fix this system now.

  Jerry Brown

  Running, Mean, Long

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• The list of non-democratic regimes that have seen significant reforms since 2001 is long and significant.

  Ginny Brown-Waite

  Long, Lists, Significant

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• It is clear we can make reforms to better ensure we are giving law enforcement all of the tools they need while maintaining the appropriate safeguards to protect the very freedoms we cherish.

  Leonard Boswell

  Law, Giving, Needs

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• Every one says: 'Listen, I'd love to reinvest. I'd love to hire people. But I have no idea what this healthcare bill is going to do to my bottom line. I have no idea what this financial reform bill is going to do... I'm not going to step out a limb and do any of those until I know what this government is going to do to me.

  Kristi Noem

  Government, Ideas, People

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• As long I still have a breath left in me I will dedicate myself fully to China’s reform.

  Wen Jiabao

  Long, China, Stills

  Wen Jiabao’s Final National People's Congress Press Conference, blogs.wsj.com. March 14, 2012.

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• It is madness beyond compare To try to reform the world.

  Moliere

  Society, Trying, World

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• Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.

  Samuel Smiles

  Evil, Political, Individual

  "Samuel Smiles and the Victorian Work Ethic". Book by Timothy Travers, 1987.

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• The ACLU's record, far from showing a momentary wavering from impartiality, is replete with attemps to reform American society according to the wisdom of liberalism. The truth of the matters is that the ACLU has always been a highly politicized organization.

  William Anthony Donohue

  Organization, Records, Politics

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• My personal credo as a libertarian conservative: I think all attempts to reform your fellow-citizens or tell them how to live their lives are arrogant and tyrannical. THAT'S why I oppose Leftism. I want people to be free to manage their own lives. Reform is just authoritarianism. People are not playthings for anybody's theories or obsessions.

  John Ray

  Thinking, People, Citizens

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• Liberals are wrong to think that opposition to health reform is a rejection of big government. If health reform consisted of extending Medicare to everyone, people would be delighted. There are millions of 64-year-olds out there who can hardly wait to be 65.

  Marcia Angell

  Thinking, Government, Years

  "Message from Massachusetts" by Marcia Angell, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 23, 2010.

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