Reformers Quotes - Page 2

• They look for a victim to chivy, and howl him down, and finally lynch him in a sheer storm of sexual frenzy which they honestly imagine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally allowable emotion, it may be an innocent Negro, a Jew like Leo Frank, a harmless half-witted German; a Christ-like idealist of the type of Debs, an enthusiastic reformer like Emma Goldman.

  Aleister Crowley

  Passion, Patriotic, Storm

  "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley". Book by Aleister Crowley. Chapter 57, 1969.

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• Those reformers who preach against image-worship, or what they denounce as idolatry - to them I say "Brothers, if you are fit to worship God-without-form discarding all external help, do so, but why do you condemn others who cannot do the same?"

  Swami Vivekananda

  Brother, Idol Worship, Helping

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1354, Manonmani Publishers

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• Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.

  Barack Obama

  Religious, Kings, Men

  "Leith Anderson, Russell Moore, Other Faith Leaders Ask Obama to Reject Gov't Report Saying Religious Freedom Is Code for Discrimination" by Anugrah Kumar, www.christianpost.com. October 12, 2016.

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• I have a message for the world, which I will deliver without fear and care for the future. To the reformers I will point out that I am a greater reformer than any one of them. They want to reform only little bits. I want root-and-branch reform.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Roots, Messages, Reform

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Swami Vivekananda on Himself”, p.231, Advaita Ashrama

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• None but praying leaders can have praying followers. A praying pulpit will beget praying pews. We do greatly need pastors and evangelists who will set the saints to this business of praying. We are not a generation of praying saints. Who will restore this breach? The greatest will he be of reformers who can set the Church to praying.

  Edward McKendree Bounds

  Motivation, Inspiration, Leader

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• Antonio Gramsci said that social reformers should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. This means that one must have the intellectual ability to see how bad things are and the emotional ability to look forward with hope. It's a hard combination to sustain, but if you can do it, you can change the world.

  Andrew Solomon

  Mean, Emotional, Should Have

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• The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.

  James Russell Lowell

  Hypocrisy, Devil, Intolerance

  James Russell Lowell (1845). “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets”, p.83

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• The apathy of the modern voter is the confusion of the modern reformer.

  Learned Hand

  Confusion, Voting, Apathy

  Learned Hand (1959). “The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses”

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• Americans have gotten to know Sarah Palin. They know that she's a role model to women and other - and reformers all over America. She's a reformer.

  John McCain

  America, Role Models, Roles

  John McCain at The Third Presidential Candidates Debate at Hofstra University at Hempstead, New York, www.nytimes.com. October 15, 2008.

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• I knew Deng Xiaoping when he came out of prison. He had, after all, been imprisoned for nearly ten years by Mao. I know what China looked like before he took over, and so in my own mind, I don't think of Deng Xiaoping as an oppressor. I think of somebody who, faced with that crisis, made a very painful and decision with which I cannot agree. But I also think of him as a great reformer.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Thinking, Years, Decision

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I'm no reformer; for I see more lightThan darkness in the world; mine eyes are quickTo catch the first dim radiance of the dawn,And slow to note the cloud that threatens storm.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Eye, Clouds, Darkness

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.556, Delphi Classics

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• Over all life broods Poesy, like the calm blue sky with its motherly, rebuking face. She is the great reformer, and where the love of her is strong and healthy, wickedness and wrong cannot long prevail.

  James Russell Lowell

  Strong, Blue, Sky

  James Russell Lowell (1845). “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets”, p.138

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• Whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of women is responsible for prostitution.

  Emma Goldman

  Inferiority, Economic, Social

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.100, 谷月社

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• The cure-alls of the present day are infinitely various and infinitely obliging. Applied psychology, autosuggestion, and royal roads to learning or to wealth are urged upon us by kindly, if not altogether disinterested, reformers. Simple and easy systems for the dissolution of discord and strife; simple and easy systems for the development of personality and power. Booklets of counsel on 'How to Get What We Want,' which is impossible; booklets on 'Visualization,' warranted to make us want what we get, which is ignoble.

  Agnes Repplier

  Simple, Thinking, Personality

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• The great reformers of the world turn into the great misanthropists, if circumstances or organization do not permit them to act.

  Florence Nightingale

  Organization, World, Permit

  Florence Nightingale (2008). “The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale”

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• What is man born for but to be a Reformer, a Remaker of what man has made? A renouncer of lies; a restorer of truth and good? Imitating that great Nature which embossoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, with every breath a new life?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Leadership, Courage, Morning

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1909). “Essays and English Traits”

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• It generally troubles them [the reformers] not a whit that their remedy implies a complete reconstruction of society, or even a reconstitution of human nature.

  William Graham Sumner

  Human Nature, Trouble, Reconstruction

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• Inequality provokes a generalized anger that finds targets where it can--immigrants, foreign countries, American elites, government in all forms--and it rewards demagogues while discrediting reformers.

  George Packer

  Country, Government, Class

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• Living more lives than one, knowing people of all classes, all shades of opinion, monarchists, republicans, socialists, anarchists, has had a salutary effect on my mind. If every year of my life, every month of the year, I had lived with reformers and crusaders I should be, by this time, a fanatic. As it is I have had such varied things to do, I have had so many different contacts that I am not even very much of a crank.

  Rheta Childe Dorr

  Years, Class, Knowing

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• Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Light, Moral, Materials

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.421

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• Modern reformers offer nebulous theories or write philanthropic novels. But your thief acts! He is as clear as a fact and as logical as a punch on the nose! And what a style he has!

  Honore de Balzac

  Writing, Style, Thieves

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• So give me the political economist, the sanitary reformer, the engineer; and take your saints and virgins, relics and miracles. The spinning-jenny and the railroad, Cunard's liners and the electric telegraph, are to me, if not to you, signs that we are, on some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that there is a mighty spirit working among us, who cannot be your anarchic and destroying Devil, and therefore may be the Ordering and Creating God.

  Charles Kingsley

  Creating, Giving, Miracle

  Charles Kingsley (1881). “The Works of Charles Kingsley: Yeast”

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• It is not envy or malice, as so many people think, but utter despair that has persuaded many educational reformers to recommend the abolition of the English public schools.

  Peter Medawar

  Educational, School, Thinking

  "The art of the soluble". Book by Peter Medawar, 1967.

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• In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousness. Just as the upright politician should hold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realize that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughingstock among decent men.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Reality, Men, Names

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses”, p.22, Courier Corporation

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• The great mistake of the reformers is to believe that life begins and ends with health, and that happiness begins and ends with a full stomach and the power to enjoy physical pleasures, even of the finer kind.

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould

  Mistake, Believe, Kind

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1920). “Modes and Morals”

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