
“Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.”
Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VII : The War of American and the Unready.
“Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.”
From a tape recording (1977-11-18) to be played in the event of his assassination, quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), p. 276
"Unexamined Mental Attitudes Left Behind By Communism" http://www.dorislessing.org/unexamined.html, in Our Country, Our Culture - The Politics of Political Correctness (1994), Partisan Review Press, edited by Edith Kurzweil and William Philips
What Will Get Us Ready (1944)
Context: Most persons are awakened and set on their new track of life through the quickening and kindling power of some person who becomes for them the instrument of inspiration and of the creation of faith and the vision of a nobler way of life. Persons are set on fire by someone who is already aflame. It is a trumpet call to high adventure that starts the forward movements away from old forms.
That is one of the greatest stories in the long history of religion. It was through a long and wonderful circuit of souls, in a succession of forerunners, that the kindling idea of “Something of God in the soul of man” came to George Fox.
David A. Ridenour, "Earth Day May No Longer Be Needed," National Policy Analysis #191,March 1998.