Reform Quotes - Page 28

• For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.

  Barbara Tuchman

  People, Relief, Extortion

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.327, Random House

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• Reform is not a one-night stand.

  John Bolton

  Night, One Night Stand, One Night

  John Bolton (2008). “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations”, p.239, Simon and Schuster

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• Until we in the community have made up our minds that what we really want is expiation, or removal, or reform, or or the discouragement of potential criminals, we shall get none of these, but only a confusion in which crime breeds more crime.

  Norbert Wiener

  Confusion, Community, Mind

  Norbert Wiener (1988). “The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society”, p.110, Da Capo Press

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• Most reformers, like a pair of trousers on a windy clothesline, go through a vast deal of vehement motion, but stay in the same place.

  Austin O'Malley

  Vehement, Pairs, Clotheslines

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• The legislator should keep two things constantly before his eyes: 1. The pure theory developed to its minutest details; 2. The particular condition of actual things which he designs to reform.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Eye, Two, Design

  "The Limits of State Action". Book by David Sidorsky. Chapter 16, 1792.

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• There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage. Legislation is required to establish the reform. No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Government, Long, Office

  Diary entry. "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Nineteenth President of the United States". Book edited by Charles Richard Williams, The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, February 14, 1879.

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• Rights are not the language of democracy. Compromise is what democracy is about. Rights are the language of freedom, and are absolute because their role is to protect our liberty. By using the absolute power of freedom to accomplish reforms of democracy, we have undermined democracy and diminished our freedom.

  Philip K. Howard

  Rights, Liberty, Democracy

  Philip K. Howard (2011). “The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America”, p.171, Random House

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• Truth reforms as well as informs.

  William Jenkyn

  Wells

  William Jenkyn, James Sherman (1839). “An Exposition Upon the Epistle of Jude: Delivered in Christ-Church, London”, p.230

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• Only the truth and its expression can establish that new public opinion which will reform the ancient obsolete and pernicious order of life; and yet we not only do not express the truth we know, but often even distinctly give expression to what we ourselves regard as false. If only free men would not rely on that which has no power, and is always fettered upon external aids; but would trust in that which is always powerful and free the truth and its expression!

  Leo Tolstoy

  Powerful, Men, Expression

  graf Leo Tolstoy (1913). “Essays, letters, misc. (General articles ; Famine articles ; The Dukhobors)”

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• Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.

  Oscar Wilde

  Russia, Fool, Impossible

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.12, Wordsworth Editions

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• Life is hard and astonishingly complicated.... No one great reform will make it easy. Most of us who work -- or want to work -- will always have trouble or discontent. So we must learn to be calm, and train all our faculties, and make others happy.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Make Others Happy, Life Is Hard, Want

  Sinclair Lewis (2012). “The Job: An American Novel”, p.266, The Floating Press

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• The man who is so run down that he needs a vacation can never adjust or reform himself in two weeks. What he really needs is to re-transform his life.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Running, Men, Vacation

  Elbert Hubbard (1922). “Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...”

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• 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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