An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. — Clara Barton
Social reforms are never carried out by the weakness of the strong; but always by the strength of the weak. — Karl Marx
Reform is a process, and not an event. — Kofi Annan
The church is always trying to get other people to reform, it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example — Mark Twain
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. — Mark Twain
Idealistic reformers are dangerous because their idealism has no roots in love, but is simply a hysterical and unbalanced rage for order amidst their own chaos. — William Irwin Thompson
You are not likely to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation. — Richard Baxter
If we can reform the man and make him a better man and a God-fearing man, then we have a chance, we believe, to build a better world. — Louis Farrakhan
Agitation is the marshalling of the conscience of a nation to mold its laws. — Robert Peel
Reformation, like education, is a journey, not a destination — Mother Jones
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious. — Mark Twain
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man. — Alan Paton
We are working for a revolution. If we do not start it by improving the life of the soldiers, all slogans of reforming and improving society are but empty words. — Chiang Kai-shek
Short Social Reform Quotes
We need a new political movement of women and men toward a new society. — Betty Friedan
In politics, reform never comes before crisis. — Tucker Carlson
If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled. — Elizabeth Blackwell
A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now. — Mort Sahl
The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers. — Sayings
Social Reform Image Quotes
Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists.
Social Policy Quotes
Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. — George C. Marshall
The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive 'policies' and 'Plans' of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word 'socialism', but what else can one call it? — H. G. Wells
I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social systems that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue. — Muhammad Yunus
Monetary policy is about the redistribution of wealth and income from the masses to the classes. — Russell Napier
The administration's reckless plan doesn't do one thing to ensure the long term security of social security, rather it undermines our economy. We need a budget and a fiscal policy that reflects the values and interests of America and restores fiscal discipline. — Debbie Stabenow
You can’t have a democracy when people don’t learn to put themselves in the shoes of another person, who can’t think what their policies mean for others. — Martha C. Nussbaum
In technology, we spend so much time experimenting, fine-tuning, getting the absolute cheapest way to do something - so why aren't we doing that with social policy? — Esther Duflo
Thanks to decades of accumulated federal budget deficits and, more significantly, imprudent Medicare and Social Security policies, we've stolen almost $60 trillion from our children. — Steven Rattner
Achieving optimal social development through developing our society as an integral system continues to be a major goal for the UAE public policy. — Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan
To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation. — Antonin Scalia
Social Value Quotes
Education today, in this particular social period, is assuming truly unlimited importance. And the increased emphasis on its practical value can be summed up in one sentence: education is the best weapon for peace. — Maria Montessori
Tolerance, openness and understanding towards other peoples' cultures, social structures, values and faiths are now essential to the very survival of an interdependent world. — Aga Khan IV
We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us. — Jacque Fresco
... a bad attitude, that the love of money is the root of all evil and the rich are evil and greedy and all that stuff. It’s basically socialism and communism. — Robert Kiyosaki
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. — Margaret Mead
Music has to be recognized as an…agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values - solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it has the ability to unite an entire community and to express sublime feelings. — Jose Antonio Abreu
If ordinary people really knew that consciousness and not matter is the link that connects us with each other and the world, then their views about war and peace, environmental pollution, social justice, religous values, and all other human endeavors would change radically. — Amit Goswami
Social values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a good thing to have more of, without limits. All are subject to diminishing returns, and ultimately negative returns. — Thomas Sowell
There is nothing wrong with being well off as long as money has a social and ethical value and is not the object of one's own greed. — Aga Khan IV
We must ensure that the global market is embedded in broadly shared values and practices that reflect global social needs, and that all the world's people share the benefits of globalization. — Kofi Annan
Social Democracy Quotes
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. — Alexis de Tocqueville
We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism than we have of being 'taught' democracy. Both are rooted in our past -- in the traditional society which produced us. — Julius Nyerere
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. — Alexis de Tocqueville
Those who deplore our militants, who exhort patience in the name of a false peace, are in fact supporting segregation and exploitation. They would have social peace at the expense of social and racial justice. They are more concerned with easing racial tension than enforcing racial democracy. — A. Philip Randolph
Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph. In measurable and well-documented ways, social capital makes an enormous difference in our lives...Social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy. — Robert D. Putnam
Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government. — Carrie Chapman Catt
Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
We’ll get spades in the ground to make sure people are not facing unaffordable energy bills and we will also make sure that we are building hospitals, schools, roads and broadband. — Liz Truss
Reform Movements Quotes
Look at what the Omar of Qatar is doing, for example - the King of Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain. There are reform movements taking place, efforts to broaden the political participation of the populations of the region. — Frank Carlucci
Let’s cut the top rates of stamp duty to enable more movement to take place and also looking at the broader tax reform, simplifying our tax system. — Liz Truss
Governments have always tried to crush reform movements, to destroy ideas, to kill the thing that cannot die. Without regard to history, which shows that no Government have ever succeeded in doing this, they go on trying in the old, senseless way. — Emmeline Pankhurst
We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society . . . . What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage. — Carl Bernstein
There is no doubt that this government and this country are benefiting from the reforms that we brought in the 1980s, and that couldn't have been done without the co-operation of the trade union movement. — Bob Hawke
Middle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be beneficiaries of reform. — Barbara Ehrenreich
Welfare reforms and the whole “happy” exploitation movement are not “baby steps.” They are big steps–in a seriously backward direction. — Gary L. Francione
Conservatism has always been about reforming government and solving problems, and that's why the conservative movement should lead on immigration reform. — Marco Rubio
The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half. — Andrew Greeley
Political Reform Quotes
The real choice we face in this primary is this: Do you want a Super PAC puppet? Or do you want a patriot who speaks the truth? Do you want incremental reform, which is what you're hearing about, or do you want revolution? — Vivek Ramaswamy
But having said that, what's happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating. — Robert McChesney
But having said that, what's happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating. — Robert Waterman McChesney
Our country, like every modern state, needs profound democratic reforms. It needs political and ideological pluralism, a mixed economy and protection of human rights and the opening up of society. — Andrei Sakharov
In the past 20 years and more since China embarked on the road of reform and opening up, we have moved steadfastly to promote political restructuring and vigorously build democratic politics under socialism. — Hu Jintao
A hallmark that distinguishes the Communist Party of China from other political parties is its courage in undertaking self-reform. — Xi Jinping
Time and time again, the obstinate refusal of the tsarist regime to concede reforms turned what should have been a political problem into a revolutionary crisis... the tsarist regime's downfall was not inevitable; but its own stupidity made it so. — Orlando Figes
Class warfare or soaking the so-called rich may make for good populist demagoguery and serve the political ends of the governing masterminds, but it does nothing to solve the grave realities of the federal government's insatiable appetite for spending and its inability to reform itself. — Mark Levin
I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he'd taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he'd taken a poll in Israel? Where would the Reformation have gone if Martin Luther had taken a poll? — Harry S. Truman
We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call our root-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up, namely, in education. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Law Reform Quotes
Minimum wage law is the 'People's Fed.' Tie minimum wage to money supply. If there is pushback against this idea, then shut down the Fed and its ability to distort the economy, penalizing labor, or make the Fed's distortions available to all businesses and all workers. — Max Keiser
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. — John Rawls
Feminism has fought no wars ... killed no opponents ... set up no concentration camps ... starved no enemies ... practiced no cruelty. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets ... for reforms in the law. — Dale Spender
The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government. — Daniel Webster
Real lobbying reform must end the practice of corporate lobbyists writing our laws. — Marty Meehan
Our entire judicial system in Liberia has broken down because of the many years of lawlessness, indiscipline and warfare. We need more training to get more qualified judges. We need infrastructural reforms. All of our laws need to be re-examined by a law reform commission. — Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Both referred to the Affordable Care Act, which is the accurate title of the health care reform law, as 'Obamacare.' That is a disparaging reference to the President of the United States, it is meant as a disparaging reference to the President of the United States. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz
The Reformers, therefore, as instruments in the hands of God, in delivering the Church from bondage to prelates, did not make it a tumultuous multitude, in which every man was a law to himself, free to believe, and free to do what he pleased. — Charles Hodge
Most people do not go to the dentist until they have a toothache; most societies do not reform abuses until the victims begin to make life uncomfortable for others. — Charles Issawi
Bourgeois society is not fundamentally opposed to the bourgeois women's movement, which is proven by the fact that in various states reforms of private and public laws concerning women have been initiated. — Clara Zetkin
I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. — John Dewey
The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life. All great artists, all great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently in tears and with bleeding hearts — D.T. Suzuki
Reform immigration to make it easy for individuals to come over here, be documented, pay taxes - immigration reform is needed to state that its about work, its not about welfare... Set up a grace period where they can get a work permit... social security card so that they can pay income tax, social security, Medicare. — Gary Johnson
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
Social Security must be preserved and strengthened. But we need to be candid about the costs and willing to make the tough choices that real reform will require. — Lindsey Graham
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
The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by complaints and denunciation; by the formation of parties, or the making of revolutions; but by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action; and when there is correct thought, right action will follow. — Henry George
Men must be capable of imagining and executing and insisting on social change if they are to reform or even maintain civilization, and capable too of furnishing the rebellion which is sometimes necessary if society is not to perish of immobility. — Rebecca West
We have a serious structural deficit problem. And it needs to be addressed. The president is trying to address it through reforms of Social Security, but the problem is there with other entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. — John W. Snow
The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue in U.S. society, whether domestic or foreign. — Noel Ignatiev
In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old. — Alfred Marshall
Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation. — Susan B. Anthony
Self-centered anger generates evil, but wrath at social injustice becomes the driving force for reform. Strong language that censures and combats a great evil often awakens adverse reactions from society, but this must not intimidate those who believe they are right. A lion is a lion because he roars. — Daisaku Ikeda
No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor and, instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal. — Mahatma Gandhi
The best social reform program in the world is a job. — Ronald Reagan
The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand still or retrogress. — Bertrand Russell
The crucial role communists played in organizing industrial unions in the 1930s and struggling for social reforms, peace, and civil rights strengthened rather then undermined democratic forces. — Michael Parenti
Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery. — Che Guevara
Every woman who has any margin of time or money to spare should adopt some one public interest, some philanthropic undertaking,or some social agitation of reform, and give to that cause whatever time and work she may be able to afford. — Frances Power Cobbe
Reforming the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the poor first requires a conversion of mind and heart. — Pope Francis
Religion and religion alone is the life of India, and when that goes India will die, in spite of politics, in spite of social reforms, in spite of Kubera's wealth poured upon the head of every one of her children. — Swami Vivekananda
All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for. — Logan Pearsall Smith
Every strategy for real social change - land reform, education, public health, the equitable distribution of natural resources ... - has been cleverly, cunningly, and consistently scuttled and rendered ineffectual by those castes and that class of people which has a stranglehold on the political process. — Arundhati Roy
Drawing on President Bush's reform plan, which would allow citizens to transfer part of their Social Security contributions into personal accounts, an alteration of the current system is needed to make necessary change. — James A. Leach
We must experiment, fail, and try again, but beginning with a critique of legal reform and a commitment to center the most vulnerable moves us away from some of the most common, obvious pitfalls of neoliberal social movement strategies. — Dean Spade
Whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of women is responsible for prostitution. — Emma Goldman
Self-reform automatically brings about social reform. — Ramana Maharshi
[Write to your congressional representative against the health care reform proposal or] we will awake to find that we have socialism. — Ronald Reagan
Amnesty will not help balance our budget ... In fact, a large-scale amnesty is likely to add trillions of dollars to the debt over time, accelerate Medicare's and Social Security's slide into insolvency and put enormous strain on our public-assistance programs. — Jeff Sessions
The social side of Washington was to be taken for granted as three-fourths of existence. Politics and reform became the detail, and waltzing the profession — Henry Adams
Until politics are a branch of science, we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium. — John B. S. Haldane
Americans need accurate information in order to consider Social Security reform. Too bad the media can't be counted upon to provide it. — Herman Cain
Essentially we need a new social consensus for economic reform as New Labour has achieved in Britain. — Peter Mandelson
You can be sure that I will always consider how changes to Social Security will impact people with disabilities when considering the various proposals offered for reform. — Steve Israel
When you look at what I've done here, you see a consistent theme of reforms which is not driven by any dogma from across the water, but a radical agenda to make sure Northern Ireland's people enjoy equal opportunities, driven by the values of social justice. — Peter Hain
One great flaw in the reforming passion is that in its eagerness to remedy social wrongs it tends to neglect, certainly to undervalue, the experience of those whose lives it wishes to improve. — Irving Howe
To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming, first and foremost, at political freedom is the very height of ignorance and futility. — Sri Aurobindo
I have no problem with technological solutions to social problems. The key question for me is, 'Who gets to implement them?' and, 'What kinds of politics of reform do technological solutions smuggle through the back door?' — Evgeny Morozov
Emancipation came to the colored race in America as a war measure. It was an act of military necessity. Manifestly it would have come without war, in the slower process of humanitarian reform and social enlightenment. — Wendell Willkie
I wish that the Democrats would put some effort into Social Security reform, illegal immigration's reform, tax reform, or some of the other real issues that are out there. — Jack Kingston
In Conclusion
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