Reform Quotes - Page 36

• Managing the other fellow's business is a fascinating game. Trade unionists all over the country have pronounced ideas for the reform of Wall Street banks; and Wall Street bankers are not far behind in giving plans for the tremendous improvement of trade union policies. Wholesalers have schemes for improving the retailer; the retailer knows just what is wrong in the conduct of wholesale business-and we might go through a long list.... Yet for some reason the classes that ought to be helped keep on stubbornly clinging to their own method of running their affairs.

  B. C. Forbes

  Running, Country, Wall

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• Reform is a work of time; a national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once.

  Joshua Reynolds

  May, Taste, Changed

  Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmond Malone (1809). “The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.238

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• Reforms are slow, but they never go backward.

  Belva Ann Lockwood

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• there can be neither politically nor morally a good which is not universal ... we cannot reform for a time or for a class, but for all and for the whole, and our very interests will draw us together in one wide bond of sympathy.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Equality, Class, Together

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1854). “The Complete Works of L. E. Landon: Containing Romance and Reality, Francesca Carrara, Traits and Trials of Early Life, Ethel Church, the Book of Beauty, Improvisatrice, the Troubadour, Venetian Bracelet, Golden Violet, Vow of the Peacock, Easter Gift, &c., &c”

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• All reform aims, in some one particular, to let the soul have its way through us; in other words, to engage us to obey.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Way, Aim

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.57, Coyote Canyon Press

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• One point in my public life: I did all I could for the reform of the civil service, for the building up of the South, for a soundcurrency, etc., etc., but I never forgot my party.... I knew that all good measures would suffer if my Administration was followed by the defeat of my party. Result, a great victory in 1880. Executive and legislature both completely Republican.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Party, Building Up, Political

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• The reform [of the civil service] should be thorough, radical, and complete.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Thorough, Should, Radical

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• We never can create a public sentiment strong enough to suppress the dram-shops until God's people take hold of the temperance reform as a part of their religion.

  Theodore L. Cuyler

  Strong, People, Prohibition

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• Every reformation ruins somebody.

  Amelia B. Edwards

  Ruins, Reformation

  Amelia B. Edwards (1865). “Half a Million of Money”, p.241

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• Reforms often fail because politics favors symbols over substance.

  Michael J. Schmoker

  Substance, Favors, Management

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• ... We have seen dog-tired Members of Congress marching lockstep ahead with their eyes fixed only on the end of the 100 Days of the 1995 Republican 'Contract with America' reform efforts. Many of the changes wrought by the House were passed without the benefit of a single hearing, or at best with a minimal legislative record. Is this what Jefferson and Madison had in mind?

  John Gibbons

  Dog, Tired, Eye

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• One current reaction to change in families, for example, is the proposal for more "education for parenthood," on the theory that this training will not only teach specific skills such as how to change diapers or how to play responsively with toddlers, but will raise parents' self-confidence at the same time. The proposed cure, in short, is to reform and educate the people with the problem.

  Kenneth Keniston

  Self Confidence, Play, Skills

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• Parents still have primary responsibility for raising children, but they must have the power to do so in ways consistent with their children's needs and their own values.... We must address ourselves less to the criticism and reform of parents themselves than to the criticism and reform of the institutions that sap their self-esteem and power.

  Kenneth Keniston

  Children, Self Esteem, Responsibility

  Kenneth Keniston, Carnegie Council on Children (1977). “All our children: the American family under pressure”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• Unable are the Loved to die For Love is Immortality, Nay, it is Deity - Unable they that love - to die For Love reforms Vitality Into Divinity.

  Emily Dickinson

  Love Is, Vitality, Divinity

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.1081, Delphi Classics

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• Over on the Democratic side, Martin O'Malley recently spoke about the need for Wall Street reform and said that he isn't running for president to be quote, 'wined and dined' by executives. Then Chris Christie said, 'And I am also not running to be wined.'

  Jimmy Fallon

  Running, Wall, President

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• President Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison yesterday. Obama said it was a good chance to talk about prison reform, and to catch up with so many former congressmen.

  Jimmy Fallon

  Yesterday, President, Sitting

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• The president is eager to get to work and looks forward to working with the new Congress on policies that will make sure middle-class Americans are sharing in the economic recovery, but the president is clear that he will not let this Congress undo important protections gained -- particularly in areas of health care, Wall Street reform and the environment.

  Barack Obama

  Wall, Health, Recovery

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• A great licentiousness treads on the heels of a reformation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reformation, Heels

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841). “Essays; with preface by Thomas Carlyle”, p.29

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• The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ideas, Imagination, Employment

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1180, Delphi Classics

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• It is handsomer to remain in the establishment better than the establishment, and conduct that in the best manner, than to make asally against evil by some single improvement, without supporting it by a total regeneration.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Evil, Improvement, Establishment

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Essays (Annotated Edition)”, p.314, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not one man.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Journalism, Newspapers

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.10, Hayes Barton Press

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• The life of a good man will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable laws appear as plainly in theinfringement as in the observance, and our lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense of virtue of some kind. The decaying tree, while yet it lives, demands sun, wind, and rain no less than the green one. It secretes sap and performs the functions of health. If we choose, we may study the alburnum only. The gnarled stump has as tender a bud as the sapling.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Rain, Men, Wind

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “The Most Alive is the Wildest – Thoreau’s Complete Works on Living in Harmony with the Nature: Walden, Walking, Night and Moonlight, The Highland Light, A Winter Walk, The Maine Woods, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples…”, p.299, e-artnow

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• It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Progress, Important, Morality

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.6, Hayes Barton Press

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• It becomes the moralist, too, to inquire what man might do to improve and beautify the system; what to make the stars shine more brightly, the sun more cheery and joyous, the moon more placid and content.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stars, Moon, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.221, Simon and Schuster

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• Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sleep, Effort, Morality

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.142

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