Reformers Quotes

• All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Hypocrite, Hypocrisy, House

  'Afterthoughts' (1931) 'Other People'

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• What is a man born for but to be a reformer, a remaker of what has been made, a denouncer of lies, a restorer of truth and good?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Men, Justice

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• The fewer the words, the better the prayer.

  Martin Luther

  Softball, Christian, Prayer

  Martin Luther (1959). “What Luther says: an anthology”

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• [Reformers] might be classified as a distinct species having eyes in the back of their heads.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Eye, Reform, Might

  Ellen Glasgow (1900). “The Descendant”

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• As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Sex, Powerful, Perfect

  St Thomas Aquinas (2013). “Summa Theologica, Volume 1”, p.466, Cosimo, Inc.

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• It is the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Fear, Atheism, Reform

  Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Gandhi, Homer A. Jack (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi”, p.81, Courier Corporation

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• It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.

  Edward Gibbon

  Firsts, Care, Reformation

  Edward Gibbon (1860). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.351

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• Scholars are those who have read in books, but thinkers, men of genius, world-enlighteners, and reformers of the human race are those who have read directly in the book of the world.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Book, Men, Race

  Arthur Schopenhauer, E. F. J. Payne (1974). “Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays”, p.492, Oxford University Press

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• PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Politics, Lectures, Finance

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2476, Delphi Classics

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• I own I never really warmed
  To the reformer or reformed.
  And yet conversion has its place
  Not halfway down the scale of grace.

  Robert Frost

  Grace, Reform, Scales

  Robert Frost (1971). “The poetry of Robert Frost”

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• The Reformer is always right about what's wrong. However, he's often wrong about what is right.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

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• This is an inevitable and easily recognizable stage in every revolutionary movement: reformers must expect to be disowned by those who are only too happy to enjoy what has been won for them.

  Doris Lessing

  Movement, Revolutionary, Stage

  Doris Lessing (2012). “The Golden Notebook”, p.8, HarperCollins UK

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• This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Culture, Motive, Conditions

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• I have no question that Newt Gingrich has the heart of a conservative reformer, the ability to rally and captivate the conservative movement.

  Rick Perry

  Heart, Movement, Conservative

  "Perry drops out, endorses Gingrich" by Peter Hamby, www.cnn.com. January 19, 2012.

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• We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Summer, Morning, Spring

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• As a reformer the liberal is dissatisfied with things as they are because they violate his exceptionally tender conscience.... Liberalism does not advocate change for its own sake, but for the sake of something better in the direction of what he regards as good, namely, the maximum of liberty consistent with a regard for all men and all interests -- the general happiness based on peace and justice.

  Ralph Barton Perry

  Men, Justice, Liberty

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• The reformers' preferred metaphor is "leveling the playing field." They should listen to the logic of their language: fields are leveled by bulldozers.

  George Will

  Fields, Logic, Language

  George F. Will (2003). “With a Happy Eye, But...: America and the World, 1997--2002”, p.282, Simon and Schuster

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• What we must remember, however, is that preservation of liberties does not depend on motives. A suppression of liberty has the same effect whether the suppressor be a reformer or an outlaw. The only protection against misguided zeal is constant alertness to infractions of the guarantees of liberty contained in our Constitution. Each surrender of liberty to the demands of the moment makes easier another, larger surrender. . .

  William O. Douglas

  Liberty, Doe, Guarantees

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• I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes

  George Soros

  Kind, Economic, Keynes

  George Soros (2003). “The Alchemy of Finance”, p.372, John Wiley & Sons

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• In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other force in human history.

  Frank Herbert

  Misery, Force, Humans

  Frank Herbert (1987). “Heretics of Dune”, p.89, Penguin

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• I am always suspicious of the formulation that "politics" has prevented a great idea from being enacted by government. Politics IS government, in a democratic society. It's a challenge for school reformers, like reformers in any realm, to build a popular constituency for their work. If the people it's supposed to benefit vote against it, that tells me that the person pushing reform lacks political skill. And political skill is a good thing.

  Nicholas Lemann

  School, Government, Skills

  "Ask the Author Live: Nicholas Lemann on Higher Education". Live chat, www.newyorker.com. September 20, 2010.

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• The modification of prejudice takes a long time, and occurs as the result of a thousand things that happen to the prejudiced person - things he sees and hears and reads, people he talks to, and places he visits. Any given reformer must be content to take a small and obscure place in a chain of cumulative pressures.

  Margaret Halsey

  Long, People, Prejudice

  Margaret Halsey (1946). “Color blind: a white woman looks at the Negro”

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• Christ is the prince of Reformers and Radicals.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Jesus, Radicalism, Christ

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.146

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• Many modern (so-called) Reformers are just as dangerous as the physician who makes a wrong diagnosis of a disease. They see the trouble from without and prescribe external remedies, while the cause of the trouble is within and needs internal treatment.

  William J. H. Boetcker

  Physicians, Needs, Disease

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• A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.

  Lydia M. Child

  Reform, Defeat

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