REFORM QUOTES
quotations about reform
To begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty--to the poor and humble.
LEW WALLACE
Ben-Hur
Success of reform is directly related to regime legitimacy.
ALI FARAZMAND
Administrative Reform in Developing Nations
The majority rules in this country, and if the majority wants good government it can always secure it through the fearless exercise of suffrage. But all change is not reform, and all investigation is not correction.
EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN
The Triumph of Reform
Many of the great reforms of society do not come from the upper levels, but from the upheavals of the lower strata.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
Revolutionists make a reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform the reform, which is often very much wanted.
G. K. CHESTERTON
What's Wrong with the World
You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.
TERRY PRATCHETT
Witches Abroad
How dangerous to defer those momentous reformations, which the conscience is solemnly preaching to the heart; if they are neglected, the difficulty and indisposition are increasing every month; the mind is receding, degree after degree, from the warm and hopeful zone, till at last it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed in relentless and eternal ice.
J. FOSTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
The besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The Scarlet Letter
It is time to effect a revolution in female manners -- time to restore to them their lost dignity -- and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Fanatical reformers do great harm to a cause; over-zeal is worse to a cause than downright opposition; the work of reform must advance without hot-bed aid.
HELENE MARIA WEBER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Mere reformation differs as much from regeneration, as whitewashing an old rotten house differs from taking it down and building a new one.
A. M. TOPLADY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, which will itself need reforming.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Biographia Literaria
When the mechanic has to mend a watch he lets the wheels run out; but the living watchworks of the state have to be repaired while they act, and a wheel has to be exchanged for another during its revolutions.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
On the Aesthetic Education of Man
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Thing: Why I am a Catholic
Reforms will come as all great reforms have always come in ridding us of evils against both man and animal--not as we change our moral principles but as we discern and accept the implications of principles already held.
MATTHEW SCULLY
Dominion
To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Signs of the Times
If public opinion is educated concerning a given reform--political, social, industrial, or moral--and if the popular conscience is sufficiently awake to enforce an enlightened public opinion, the reform is accomplished straightway. This then is the generic reform--the education of public opinion and of popular conscience.
JOSIAH STRONG
The Twentieth Century City
Reform, to be useful and durable, must be gradual and cautious.
HORACE SMITH
attributed, Day's Collacon
All zeal for a reform, that gives offence
To peace and charity, is mere pretense.
WILLIAM COWPER
Charity
Reform lets in light through the dark curtain of ignorance and superstition.
H. S. JACOBS
attributed, Day's Collacon