Reformers Quotes - Page 7

• But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you-the social reformers-see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Freedom, Men, Essence

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• The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.

  Henry Miller

  Art, Opposites, Understanding

  Henry Miller (1961). “The Cosmological Eye”, p.193, New Directions Publishing

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• Perfect concordance among reformers is not to be expected; and men who are honestly struggling towards the light cannot hope to attain at one bound to the complete truth. There is always a danger lest the fascination of a new discovery should lead us too far. Men of science, being human, are apt, like lovers, to exaggerate the perfections and be a little blind to the faults of the object of their choice.

  Thomas George Bonney

  Truth, Struggle, Science

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• Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mistake, Errors, Torches

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.605

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• The reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Change, Order, Enemy

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2017). “The Prince”, p.19, Knickerbocker Classics

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• Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Inspirational, Truth, Ideas

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2012). “The Woman's Bible”, p.18, tredition

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• Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.

  Derrick Bell

  Hands, Oppressors

  Derrick Bell (2010). “Ethical Ambition”, p.60, A&C Black

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• Lower oil prices won't, by themselves, topple the mullahs in Iran. But it's significant that, historically, when oil prices have been low, Iranian reformers have been ascendant and radicals relatively subdued, and vice versa when prices have been high.

  James Surowiecki

  Iran, Oil, Vices

  "TROUBLED WATERS OVER OIL". www.newyorker.com. February 19, 2007.

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• Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt 'unpatriotic' - serious talk from what looked to be a serious reformer. Yet by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt.

  Paul Ryan

  Government, Europe, Decision

  Paul Ryan's Speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, www.npr.org. August 29, 2012.

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• Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

  Walter Lippmann

  Inspirational, Vices, Failing

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

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• I live for Pilates reformer class. I go at least three times a week. It's a great way to lengthen your muscles, stretch, and kind of relax your mind.

  Shawn Johnson

  Class, Mind, Relax

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• Reformers have the idea that change can be achieved by brute sanity.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Ideas, Sanity, Economics

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• But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Faith Religion, Departed

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.492

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• I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers... coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia now — and we're going to try our hands at it.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Tired, Sleep, Thinking

  Sinclair Lewis (1924). “Main Street”, p.228, Lulu.com

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• Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government.

  B. R. Ambedkar

  Motivational, Men, Political

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• The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society.

  Mother Jones

  Children, Effort, Insane

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• And while Protestant reformers broke with Rome on a variety of counts, their treatment of their fellow human beings was no less disgraceful. Public executions were more popular than ever: heretics were still reduced to ash, scholars were tortured and killed for impertinent displays of reason, and fornicators were murdered without a qualm.

  Sam Harris

  Rome, Religion, Ashes

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.86, W. W. Norton & Company

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• An education reformer is as important in America as the first lady.

  Michelle Rhee

  America, Important, Firsts

  Source: www.sfgate.com

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• I've always been a reformer all the time I served in public office, and remain a reformer in Ohio, but I also know how to get things done. And I think it's important that, while we acknowledge the anxieties that Americans have, I think it's also important we realize at the end of the day, we need to have somebody who knows how to land a plane, and I've landed quite a few planes.

  John Kasich

  Thinking, Ohio, Land

  "John Kasich on rising in the New Hampshire polls; Sens. Ron Johnson and Chris Murhpy on how America should respond to Europe's refugee dilemma". "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.foxnews.com. September 13, 2015.

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• Ram Mohan Roy would have been a greater reformer and Lokmanya Tilak a greater scholar if they had not to start with the handicap of having to think in English and transmit their thoughts chiefly in English.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Thinking, Rams, Language

  Mahatma Gandhi (1947). “Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi”

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• While we honour religion and believe it to be a powerful factor in elevating our race, we discriminate, as we hope our readers will also do, between it and dogmatism. Dogmatism has been the bane of civilization and a curse to mankind. It has degraded our sex, stifled intelligent inquiry, and persecuted every independent reformer and every noble cause.

  Tennessee Celeste Claflin

  Sex, Powerful, Believe

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• And I think Governor Romney has a shot if the 'R' next to his name doesn't just stand for 'Republican,' it stands for 'reformer.

  Scott Walker

  Thinking, Names, Next

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• For A to sit down and think, What shall I do? is commonplace; but to think what B ought to do is interesting, romantic, moral, self-flattering, and public-spirited all at once. It satisfies a great number of human weaknesses at once. To go on and plan what a whole class of people ought to do is to feel one's self a power on earth, to win a public position, to clothe one's self in dignity. Hence we have an unlimited supply of reformers, philanthropists, humanitarians, and would-be managers-in-general of society.

  William Graham Sumner

  Thinking, Winning, Class

  William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.97, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Dr. Arnold . . . the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Reading, School

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.161, Psychology Press

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• Reformers who are obsessed with purity and cannot see that their obsession is impure.

  E. M. Forster

  Obsession, Purity, Obsessed

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