Quoted on Calendar Reform and the Future of Civilization, Preparatory Reflections for the World Summit on Peace and Time University for Peace http://www.lawoftime.org/timeshipearth/articlesbyvv/calendarreform.html%20Full%20Text, Costa Rica, June 22, 1999 - June 27, 1999).
Alexis De Tocqueville book The Old Regime and the Revolution
Variant translation: The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform. <br class="br">Old Regime (1856), p. 214 http://books.google.com/books?id=N50aibeL8BAC&pg=PA214&vq=%22most+critical+moment+for+bad+governments%22&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1 <br class="br">1850s and later
“Scepticism is the first step towards truth.”
Denis Diderot book Philosophical thoughts
As quoted in The Anchor Book of French Quotations with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Gutermam
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)
Variant: A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
Variant: The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
Source: Pensées philosophiques
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
2000s, 2004, Signing of Secure Fence Act of 2006
Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse
"Morality and Birth Control", February-March, 1918, pp. 11,14.
Birth Control Review, 1918-32
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American writer
it is greatness itself.
Reported in Louis Klopsch, Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1896), p. 133.
“A correct theory is the first step towards improvement”
William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy
Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 44.
Context: A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.
Mikheil Saakashvili (1967) Georgian-Ukrainian politician, President of Georgia and Governor of Odessa
Inaugural address (2004) <br class="br">Source: As quoted in "Georgia swears in new president" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3426977.stm (25 January 2004), BBC News
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist
Source: Physics and Politics http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/phypl10.txt (1869), Ch. 2, The Use of Conflict <br class="br">Context: The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.
“The first step towards madness is to think oneself wise.”
Fernando de Rojas La Celestina
Act II.
La Celestina (1499)
