“Reform is a word you always ought to watch out for. Like, when Mao started the Cultural Revolution it wasn't called a reform. Reform is a change that you're supposed to like. So as soon as you hear the word reform you can reach for your wallet and see who's lifting it. […] Subsidy is another interesting word, kind of like reform. It's a subsidy if public funds are used for public purposes. That's called a subsidy. It's not called a subsidy when it goes to private wealth. That's reform or something.”

—  Noam Chomsky

Talk titled "Free Market Fantasies" at Harvard University, April 13, 1996 https://chomsky.info/19960413/.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Reform is a word you always ought to watch out for. Like, when Mao started the Cultural Revolution it wasn't called a r…" by Noam Chomsky?
Noam Chomsky photo
Noam Chomsky 334
american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

Related quotes

“Well," said Dr Jochum, "you are like all reformers. You like to reform the world because it is easier than trying to reform yourself.”

Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic

Page 111.
Stepping Westward (1965)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“The Reformation in the sixteenth century narrowed Reform. As soon as men began to call themselves names, all hope of further amendment was lost.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

21 July 1827
Table Talk (1821–1834)

Edmund Burke photo

“Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils.”

A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Context: We scarce ever had a prince, who by fraud, or violence, had not made some infringement on the constitution. We scarce ever had a parliament which knew, when it attempted to set limits to the royal authority, how to set limits to its own. Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils. Our boasted liberty sometimes trodden down, sometimes giddily set up, and ever precariously fluctuating and unsettled; it has only been kept alive by the blasts of continual feuds, wars, and conspiracies.

Agnes Repplier photo
Stephen Harper photo

“The Reform party is much closer to what you would call conservative Republican.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

1990s, Speech to the Council for National Policy (1997)

Henry Ford photo
Francis Escudero photo

“We should align government subsidies to private and public colleges with courses that meet the demands of the market. Like engineering and computer sciences.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Mortimer J. Adler photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
Samuel Smiles photo

“Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.”

Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) Scottish author

As quoted in Samuel Smiles and the Victorian Work Ethic (1987) by Timothy Travers, p. 162.

Related topics