Quotes about reform
page 9

“I have already accepted the policy of Imperial preference…to the effect that a preference will be given on existing duties and on any duties which may subsequently be imposed. On this subject I think there is no difference of opinion between us. … I am prepared to say that the key industries on which the life of the nation depends must be preserved. I am prepared to say also that, in order to keep up the present standard of production and develop it to the utmost extent possible, it is necessary that security should be give against the unfair competition to which our industries have been in the past subjected by the dumping of goods below the actual cost of production. … I shall look at every problem simply from the point of view of what is the best method of securing the objects at which we are aiming without any regard to theoretical opinions about Free Trade or Tariff Reform.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Andrew Bonar Law (2 November 1918), quoted in The Times (18 November 1918), p. 4
Prime Minister

Dependency, Past, Problem, Thinking

“He…made observations with regard to the Queen, which, in my opinion, no meeting of people in this country, and certainly no meeting of Reformers, ought to have listened to with approbation. (Cheers.) Let it be remembered that there has been no occasion on which any Ministry has proposed an improved representation of the people when the Queen has not given her cordial, unhesitating, and, I believe, hearty assent. (Cheers.) … But Mr. Ayrton referred further to a supposed absorption of the sympathies of the Queen with her late husband to the exclusion of sympathy for and with the people. (Hear, hear.) I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns. (Hear, hear.) But I could not sit here and hear that observation without a sensation of wonder and of pain. (Loud cheers.) I think there has been by many persons a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. (Cheers.) And I venture to say this, that a woman, be she the Queen of a great realm or be she the wife of one of your labouring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Loud and prolonged cheers.
Speech in St James's Hall, Piccadilly, London (4 December 1866), quoted in The Times (5 December 1866), p. 7
1860s

Pain, Country, Personality, People

“I believe both Scotland and the UK should stay in the EU. Scotland benefits from being part of the EU, and the EU benefits from having Scotland a part of it. No SNP parliamentarian has expressed a desire to campaign for the out campaign - though they are not prevented from doing so. I am determined to make the positive case for continued membership in a reformed EU.”

Nicola Sturgeon (1970) First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party

Scottish Lib Dem conference: Leader Tim Farron in staunch defence of EU https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35674306 BBC News (27 February 2016) 2016

Making love, Parting

“The adherents of the German Nazi movement reflected a profoundly left-wing footprint not only as social revolutionaries, secularists of political theodicy, and diehard collectivists, but as brothers posturing and fighting for alpha-male dominance. As Nazism developed, it was heavily influenced by the early Utopian socialists, the neo-socialists, and various movements to reform Marxism, opposing any independent political or religious movement that might eclipse its own authority. Extremely hostile towards the aristocracy, Christianity, and capitalism, Nazis considered themselves revolutionaries—radicals determined to bring about a classless society of superior racial egalitarianism bathed in volk socialism. There was nothing traditionally conservative about their movement.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 411

Fight, Hostility

“The ideology of Nazism included many of the same tenets of the social democrat and socialist democratic gradualists, today and in the past. The Nazis took gradualist positions to bring about socialism, social welfare measures, socioeconomic equality (known as Völkisch equality), classless society, public work projects, mandatory labor union membership, and class cooperation previously found appealing to Marxist heretics and reformers.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 369

Past

“The one overlap between Sanders and Warren is their relative appeal to young people. This stands in contrast to Biden, for whom the greatest predictor of support is age. The older you are, the more likely you are to be ridin’ with Biden. This suggests that the progressive tussle between Warren and Sanders is about more than a competition for Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N. Y.) endorsement; it’s really about the future of the party… Already, progressives are setting the pace for new and popular policy ideas. Reformer, or revolutionary? The policies may be similar, but the results could be dramatically different.”

Elizabeth Warren (1949) 28th United States Senator from Massachusetts

Krystal Ball in Warren the reformer v. Sanders the revolutionary, The Hill, https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/450547-warren-the-reformer-v-sanders-the-revolutionary (27 June 2019)

Support, Future, People, Age

“He led a simple and disciplined public life and stood for social equality and women empowerment, founded Basava Samiti for spreading principles adopted by 12th Century social reformer Basaveshwara.”

Basappa Danappa Jatti (1912–2002) Indian politician

The Hindu Reporter in: ‘Principles followed by B.D. Jatti still relevant’ http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article3879641.ece, The Hindu, 10 September 2012

Life, Women

“Clubs are very peculiar institutions. They are societies of gentlemen who meet principally for social purposes, superadded to which there are often certain other purposes, sometimes of a literary nature, sometimes to promote political objects, as in the Conservative or the Reform Club.”

John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly (1802–1874) English Whig politician and judge

But the principal objects for which they are designed are social, the others are only secondary. It is, therefore, necessary that there should be a good understanding between all the members, and that nothing should occur that is likely to disturb the good feeling that ought to subsist between them.
Hopkinson v. Marquis of Exeter (1867), L. R. 5 Eq. Ca. 67.

Nature

“Thanks to Swati Tirunal, Mohiniyattom became highly refined. His contribution to the education sector too is remarkable. He started the Maharaja’s High School and then Maharaja’s College (now University College). He set up an observatory. He reformed the judicial and law and order systems.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

M.A. Baby, in “Contribution of Swati Tirunal to Kerala unparalleled]
About Swathi Thirunal

School, Education, Law, Universe

“There are many other evidences of Swathi’s efforts to promote education and modern science…. Many of his reforms were progressive and many put an end to superstitions. One instance would be enough to mention in this regard – abolishing the practice of Sucheendram Kaimukku where accused persons were to dip their fingers in boiling oil to prove their innocence.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

Dr Achuthsankar S Nair, in "An enlightened and princely patron of true science".
About Swathi Thirunal

Education, Science, Personality, Effort

“He introduced educational reforms and laid the foundation for the Telugu Ganga project to provide drinking water to Madras city, apart from irrigating the dry lands of Rayalaseema.”

N. T. Rama Rao (1923–1996) Indian actor and Andhra Pradesh former chief minister

In “N.T. Rama Rao (1923 - 1995): A messiah of the masses”.
About NTR

Education, Water, Drink

“I had a farewell talk with Gokhale…. On the whole his tone both attracted and impressed me. He promises very confidently a good reception for our Reforms by the Congress…. But whether dealing with Parnell, Gokhale, or any other of the political breed, I have a habit of taking them to mean what they say until and unless I find out a trick. Parnell always so long as we were friends or allies, treated me perfectly honourably…. Mr. Gokhale is to stay in London until the end of the session, and I am in good hopes of finding him a help to me, and not a hindrance, in guiding the strong currents of democratic feeling that are running breast high in the House of Commons.”

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) social and political leader during the Indian Independence Movement

Observations of w:John Morley on Minto-Morley Reforms in India for full fiscal and political autonomy within the empire in Gopala Krishna Gokhale, D. N. Bannerjea (1866-1915), 4 December 2013, Bangla Library http://web.archive.org/web/20131017195504/http://forum.banglalibrary.org/viewtopic.php?id=1398,

Confidence, Housing, Strong, Hope

“An iconoclastic dancer, visionary institution builder, educationalist, elite woman privileged to travel the world when she was barely 25 years of age and empowered to work for global causes in Europe, Australia, England and America. Also perceived as uncompromising traditionalist, quintessential South Indian Brahmin girl, champion of animal rights, woman parliamentarian, craft revivalist, social reformer, cultural educator, and national icon.”

Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904–1986) Indian Bharatnatyam dancer

Dr Avanthi Meduri in "Rukmini Devi Arundale, 1904-1986: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts", page=xiii
About Rukmini Devi

Girl, Animals, Travel, Age

“We are going through a crucial historical crisis in which each year poses more acutely the global problem of rationally mastering the new productive forces and creating a new civilization. Yet the international working-class movement, on which depends the prerequisite overthrow of the economic infrastructure of exploitation, has registered only a few partial local successes. Capitalism has invented new forms of struggle (state intervention in the economy, expansion of the consumer sector, fascist governments) while camouflaging class oppositions through various reformist tactics and exploiting the degenerations of working-class leaderships. In this way it has succeeded in maintaining the old social relations in the great majority of the highly industrialized countries, thereby depriving a socialist society of its indispensable material base. In contrast, the underdeveloped or colonized countries, which over the last decade have engaged in the most direct and massive battles against imperialism, have begun to win some very significant victories. These victories are aggravating the contradictions of the capitalist economy and (particularly in the case of the Chinese revolution) could be a contributing factor toward a renewal of the whole revolutionary movement. Such a renewal cannot limit itself to reforms within the capitalist or anticapitalist countries, but must develop conflicts posing the question of power everywhere.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

About the Situationist International movement
Report on the Construction of Situations (1957)

Dependency, Question, Country, Success

“About Raja Rammohun Roy: There is no doubt that he was the first who held before us the ideal of freedom. He was the first to sound the note of freedom in every department of life and in every different culture that has met to-day in India. It may be that we have to modify that, it may we have to analyse that more carefully and more in details for the purpose of scientific study but it is enough for our purpose to say that he inaugurated many reforms – you might call that reforming activity. He inaugurated the reforms which again, in turn, gave rise to reaction which, again, gave rise to further reforms which made the nation turn on itself, till at last, it began to be self-conscious.”

Chittaranjan Das (1870–1925) Indian politician and leader of the Swaraj Party

Speech delivered at Barisal on 14th October 1917. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.
About others

Self-confidence, Life, Study, Freedom

“As I plodded back and forth I reflected miserably upon my own political rootlessness, in a world where politics is so important. When I am with Tories I am a violent advocate of reform; when I am with reformers I hold forth on the value of tradition and stability. When I am with communists I become a royalist — almost a Jacobite; when I am with socialists I am an advocate of free trade, private enterprise and laissez-faire.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The presence of a person who has strong political convictions always sends me flying off in a contrary direction. Inevitably, in the world of today, this will bring me before a firing squad sooner or later. Maybe the fascists will shoot me, and maybe the proletariat, but political contrariness will be the end of me; I feel it in my bones.
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

World

“What is news is that in the United States over the last few decades these differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially. We are still talking about this despite decades of clucking about the crisis in American education and wave after wave of school reform. Whatever we’ve been doing in our schools, it hasn’t reduced educational inequality between children from upper- and lower-income families. Part of knowing what we should do about this is understanding how and why these educational disparities are growing.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

School, Family, Understanding, Success

“Amount of rapes are increasing. Because therefore more and more women will be raped, my earnest wish is that right women will be raped by predators choosing their victims randomly. Green-left-winger reformers and their voters. Rather them than others. Nothing else will work for them, but multiculture that hits their own ankle.”

Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

Jussi Halla-aho (2006), published in the blog Scripta [original finnish text] in http://www.halla-aho.com/scripta/monikulttuurisuus_ja_nainen.html, December 20, 2006
2005-09

Women

“There are two types of writers: those who write to support the existing system and prove and augment its legitimacy through their writings. On the other hand, there are those who critically examine society and make an attempt to restructure and reform it on the basis of fresh ideas.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

Dimensions of History, Chapter: Intellectuals and Society, p. 56
Writer

Idea, Support, Making love

“When you're white you don't know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto, you don’t know what it's like to be poor...You don't know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street, or dragged out of a car. And I believe that as a nation in the year 2016, we must be firm in making it clear, we will end institutional racism and reform a broken criminal justice system”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2016-03-06
Sanders: If You're White You Don't Know What It's Like To Be Poor
Amanda Terkel
Huffington Post
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-ghetto_n_56dce712e4b03a405679062b
2010s, 2016

Cars, Justice, Making love

“Life can be better for women—economic and political conditions improved—and at the same time the status of women can remain resistant, in deed impervious, to change: so far in history this is precisely the paradigm for social change as it relates to the conditions of women. Reforms are made, important ones' but the status of women relative to men does not change. Women are still less significant, have less privacy, less integrity, less self-determination. This means that women have less freedom.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 7

Time, History, Freedom, Self-confidence

“Today we are on the brink of a new synthesis. In the past four centuries western science has experienced a continuous shattering and reforming of its basic concepts. Now the scientific community has begun to recognize striking correlations between their findings and those expressed abstrusely by ancient mystics. This is a convocation of visionary men and women pioneering this new synthesis.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Six, Liberating Knowledge: News from the Frontiers of Science

Past, Communication, Science, Women

“Scientific discoveries about the richness and complexity of nature reveal the poverty of our usual approaches to health, especially our efforts to deal externally, forcefully, and invasively with systems whose delicate balance can only be corrected if the inner physician is recruited. Just as outer reforms have limited effect on the body politic, external treatments are insufficient to heal the body if the spirit is in conflict.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eight, Healing Ourselves

Nature, Health, Effort

“The Prescription: We must face our pain and conflict. Until we quit denying our failures and muffling our uneasiness, until we confess our bewilderment and alienation, we can't take the next and necessary steps. The political system needs to be transformed, not reformed.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power

Pain, Failure

“It has long been a fashion amongst you, which you have had the complaisance to adopt at the instigation of a corrupt press, to call every friend of reform, every friend of freedom, a Jacobin, and to accuse him of French principles. ... What are these principles?—That governments were made for the people, and not the people for governments.—That sovereigns reign legally only by virtue of the people's choice.—That birth without merit ought not to command merit without birth.--That all men ought to be equal in the eye of the law.—That no man ought to be taxed or punished by any law to which he has not given his assent by himself or by his representative.—That taxation and representation ought to go hand in hand.—That every man ought to be judged by his peers, or equals.—That the press ought to be free. ... Ten thousand times as much has been written on the subject in England as in all the rest of the world put together. Our books are full of these principles. ... There is not a single political principle which you denominate French, which has not been sanctioned by the struggles of ten generations of Englishmen, the names of many of whom you repeat with veneration, because, apparently, you forget the grounds of their fame. To Tooke, Burdett, Cartwright, and a whole host of patriots of England, Scotland and Ireland, imprisoned or banished, during the administration of Pitt, you can give the name of Jacobins, and accuse them of French principles. Yet, not one principle have they ever attempted to maintain that Hampden and Sydney did not seal with their blood.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘To the Merchants of England’, Political Register (29 April 1815), pp. 518–19
1810s

Time, Law, Freedom, Forgetting

“My trust towards China was both built up and broken down by Deng Xiaoping. There was hope due to his economic reforms, but the 4 June massacre killed all that.”

Szeto Wah (1931–2011) Hong Kong politician and teacher

Szeto Wah obituary https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/10/szeto-wah-obituary

Hope

“The reform of our enormous state indeed demanded decentralization and redistribution of powers between the centre and the regions. But the local elites tried to paint this need in the exaggerated colours of 'national survival.'”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

It worked!
1990s, Memoirs (1995)

Painting

“The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station was graphic evidence, not only of how obsolete our technology was, but also of the failure of the old system. At the same time, and such is the irony of history, it severely affected our reforms by literally knocking the country off its tracks.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, Memoirs (1995)

Time, Failure, History, Country

“We are a remain and reform party.”

Tom Watson (Labour politician) (1967) British politician

Brexit: Cross-party deal must include new referendum - Sir Keir Starmer https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48245499 BBC News (13 May 2019) 2019

“The main goal of this book is to reform thinking and writing about the barbarians in late antiquity by driving out the anachronistic terms "German" and "Germanic" and the baggage that goes with them.”

Walter Goffart (1934) American historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarian Tides (2010), p. 6

Thinking, Books

“A government which cannot be reformed does not merit to be preserved.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Private notes, quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 74
Undated

“Go down to City Hall and see what is on the agenda for the next council meeting—garbage collection, water supply, it does not matter which one—then go and learn everything you can about it. Read past reports, talk to people, learn the topic until you know it as well as anyone. Then when you get up to speak, or to make a suggestion for change, your voice will be heard because you are knowledgeable. That is how reform works.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

According to daughter Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush, as told to biographer Melvin I. Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis: A Life (2009), p. 130.
Attributed

Reading, Past, People, Learning

“Religious liberty came not from the Reformation or from the sects as a whole but from particular sects...especially those which the Reformation sought to exterminate.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Private notes, quoted in Herbert Butterfield, ‘Acton: His Training, Methods and Intellectual System’, in A. O. Sarkissian (ed.), Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography in honour of G. P. Gooch, C.H. (1961), p. 194
Undated

“Had they thought of the relations between Imperialism and social reform? Could we continue this process of territorial expansion with our increasing Budgets? What we wanted was resolute and sustained attention to strengthening our industrial position. What was the use of conquering new markets when it was as much as we could do to hold the markets which we had already? (Cheers.) As to the Liberal policy...the day when the Liberal party forsook its old principles of peace, economy, and reform the Liberal party would have to disband and to disappear. (Cheers.) The Socialists would take its place. ... [I]f he were to choose between the Socialist and the Militarist, with all his random aims, his profusion of national resources, his disregard for the rights and feelings of other people, he himself declared he considered the Socialist's standards were higher and their means were no less wise.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Cheers.

Speech to the Palmerston Club, Oxford (9 June 1900), quoted in The Times (11 June 1900), p. 3
1900s

Peace, People, Feeling, Relation ships

“I have a passion for reform, for the progress of man and society. I cannot stand the feeling of being useless.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

L'Unité d'un Homme (November 1994), quoted in The Times (21 November 1994), p. 11
President of the European Commission

Passion, Feeling

“The crux is the reform of the treaty which would lead to common action. There must be a will to defend the central interests of Europe. If there is no majority voting, then the same level of impotence will continue.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Speech to the European Parliament (23 October 1991), quoted in The Times (24 October 1991), p. 14
President of the European Commission

“Heaven forgets, or tolerates—waiting for you to reform.”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Balsamo the Magician (or The Memoirs of a Physician) by Alex. Dumas (1891)

Forgetting, Waiting

“As both sides debate the path forward on reforming our immigration system, the BE SAFE Act provides a constitutional answer that guarantees funding for our needs on the border without taking away from other priorities or increasing the burden on American taxpayers.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

4 March 2019 https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1331191/dr-rand-paul-introduces-be-safe-act-to-fund-border-security 2019

“Turn where we may,—within,—around,—the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve. Now, therefore, while every thing at home and abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age,—now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the continent is still resounding in our ears,—now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings,—now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted, and great societies dissolved,—now, while the heart of England is still sound,—now, while the old feelings and the old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away,—now, in this your accepted time,—now in this your day of salvation,—take counsel, not of prejudice,—not of party spirit,—not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency,—but of history,—of reason,—of the ages which are past,—of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great Debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by their own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this Bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing regret, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1831) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1831/mar/02/ministerial-plan-of-parliamentary-reform#column_1204 in favour of the Reform Bill 1830s

Home, God, Time, Law

“Preservation, renewal, and reform of the Union was my main political and, if you will, moral task in my position as president of the USSR. I consider it my greatest sorrow and misfortune that I did not succeed in preserving the country as a single whole. All my efforts were focused on trying to preserve that unity. Incidentally, more and more statements are heard today, including some by participants in the Belovezh accord, that the "soft form of Union Gorbachev proposed" might have protected our nations and nationalities from painful experiences. But, as the saying goes, the train has already left the station.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, On My Country and the World (1999)

Training, Effort, Pain, Country

“The dissolution of the Union radically changed the situation in Europe and the world, disrupted the geopolitical balance, and undermined the possibility of carrying further many positive processes that were under way in world politics by the end of 1991. I am convinced that the world today would be living more peacefully if the Soviet Union - of course in a renewed and reformed version - had continued to exist.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, On My Country and the World (1999)

Way, World, Change

“The Catholic Church itself has been nearly killed by the infection of the puritanism of the Reformation.”

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet

Magna Moralia XLIX, p. 201.
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

“Without doubt, a truly mighty and powerful person is not one who can move a mountain from its place, not in the least. True courage is to muster the strength to reform one's morals.”

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) religious figure

Source: Malfuzat,Vol.1,p.136 to 137

Mountain, Courage, Personality

“Well, the purpose of reform really is directed to the encouraging of growth and employment. I quite agree that to launch into a full scale battle on general reform for academic reasons would be unwise. The central purpose behind the reform must therefore be to encourage those changes in our tax laws which will encourage economic growth for that purpose, and not merely because it might have some longer range interest or significance. The primary job will be to encourage the flow of capital into those areas which stimulate the national growth and not diminish it. But it is going to be a tough fight, because once you spell out, as I said before, reform, it's bound to affect adversely the interests of some, while favoring the interests of others. Therefore reform may be a longer task, and we are anxious that in the effort to get reform, that we do not lose the very important matter of tax reduction for the sake of the economy.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Fight, Change, Law, Effort

“When I announced in April of 1961 that this kind of comprehensive tax reform would follow the bill enacted this year, I had hoped to present it in an atmosphere of a balanced budget. But it has been necessary to augment sharply our nuclear and conventional forces, to step up our efforts in space, to meet the increased cost of servicing the national debt and meeting our obligations, established by law, to veterans. These expenditure increases, let me stress, constitute practically all of the increases which have occurred under this administration, the remainder having gone to fight the recession we found in industry--mostly through the supplemental employment bill-and in agriculture. We shall, therefore, neither postpone our tax cut plans nor cut into essential national security programs. This administration is determined to protect America's security and survival and we are also determined to step up its economic growth. I think we must do both.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Law, Hope, Thinking, Fight

“The new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges. These steps are not only needed to recover lost revenue and thus make possible a larger cut in present rates; they are also tied directly to our goal of greater growth. For the present patchwork of special provisions and preferences lightens the tax load of some only at the cost of placing a heavier burden on others. It distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities. It makes certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings. All this inhibits our growth and efficiency, as well as considerably complicating the work of both the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service. These various exclusions and concessions have been justified in part as a means of overcoming oppressively high rates in the upper brackets--and a sharp reduction in those rates, accompanied by base-broadening, loophole-closing measures, would properly make the new rates not only lower but also more widely applicable. Surely this is more equitable on both counts.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Making love, Parting, Effort

“I say that we put all our money upon the wrong horse. ... My own conviction is strong that, unless some very essential reforms in the conduct of the government are adopted, the doom of the Turkish Empire cannot be very long postponed.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1897/jan/19/address-in-answer-to-her-majestys-most#column_29 in the House of Lords (19 January 1897), expressing regret for Britain's support of the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War

Money, Horse, Strong

“The main burden of local defense against local attack, subversion, insurrection or guerrilla warfare must of necessity rest with local forces. Where these forces have the necessary will and capacity to cope with such threats, our intervention is rarely necessary or helpful. Where the will is present and only capacity is lacking, our Military Assistance Program can be of help. But this program, like economic assistance, needs a new emphasis. It cannot be extended without regard to the social, political and military reforms essential to internal respect and stability. The equipment and training provided must be tailored to legitimate local needs and to our own foreign and military policies, not to our supply of military stocks or a local leader's desire for military display. And military assistance can, in addition to its military purposes, make a contribution to economic progress, as do our own Army Engineers.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Training, Making love, Help

“My mandate (as the President of Benin) will be a mandate of rupture, transition and reforms.”

Patrice Talon (1958) Beninese president

Statement made during his presidential swearing-in ceremony in Porto-Novo, 6 April 2016. Source: Patrice Talon (2016) cited in: " Businessman sworn in as Benin's president https://www.reuters.com/article/us-benin-election-idUSKCN0X31QO" in Reuters, 6 April 2016.

“The breakup of Christianity during the Reformation into national churches and the proliferation of denominations today would seem to indicate that a religious universality cannot be successfully maintained across racial and ethnic lines. ... Ethnicity will almost always triumph.”

Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005) American writer

Source: God Is Red (1973), p. 209

Universe

“Every election we know features some illegality and irregularity, and of course that’s unacceptable. I support strong state-led voting reforms. Last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures must not become the new norm, but my colleagues, nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election, nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence.”

Mitch McConnell (1942) US Senator from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader

2021, Remarks on Electoral College votes (2021)

Strong, Support

“Take our constitution, wanting certainly as it did many reforms, yet, practically, it afforded the best security that human wisdom had ever given to man.”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-British politician, playwright and writer

Speech in the House of Commons (21 July 1812), quoted in The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, Vol. XXIII (1812), column 1156

Wisdom

“The institutions of democracy will be gradually and, if possible, imperceptibly withdrawn. The Press will become a better and better directed and drilled servant of the capitalist class. All other methods of disseminating information, notably the cinema and the wireless, will be more and more consciously monopolized. Power may be gradually withdrawn from a democratically elected Chamber (cf . Reform of the House of Lords in Britain) or alternatively the franchise may be gradually curtailed (cf. the proposals of the British Conservative party for withholding the franchise from persons in receipt of poor relief). At the same time, the habitual regime of police violence will be increased (cf. the present heavy sentences on working-class militants in Britain passed almost openly, not for any specific offence but because the accused were working-class militants, as notably in the case of Arthur Homer; the increasing use of terror in all American wage disputes ; the police regime in France, etc., etc.). This method applies the principle of " the inevitability of gradualness " to the introduction of an open capitalist dictatorship.”

John Strachey (1901–1963) British politician and writer (1901-1963)

Source: The Coming Struggle for Power (1932), p. 268

Democracy, Personality, Time, Housing

“We need to have perspectives in candidates that reflect the perspectives of a younger generation... Young people have demands and unmet needs. One thing I want to do is say that we can make change and enact legislation that will help. Investment in clean energy, environmental action, real criminal justice reform, and college debt reform are issues that matter to millennials but get little attention in a Senate dominated by boomers and members of the Greatest Generation.”

Jon Ossoff (1987) American politician

Quoted in Fortune (magazine), Jon Ossoff becomes the only senator under 40, injecting some much-needed youth, by Nicole Goodkind, (6 January 2021)

Justice, Help, People, Making love

“Cotton is to-day by far the most important textile used by mankind, and wool is next. And we may expect that this sartorial reform, already so far advanced, will go on, and that the more enlightened generations of the future, for both moral and economic reasons, will clothe themselves entirely in fabrics of bloodless origin.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Cost of a Skin, p. 74

Clothes, Future

“Spiritual evolution is the progressive advance of mankind toward a state of things in which the light of ethical perfection shall be reflected from the face of human society; that is, in which all men shall live and move and have their being in mutually promoting the highest life of each and all. It means that the object of social reformation shall not be a mere change in the conditions under which men live, but a change in human nature itself. It means that we shall look forward consciously to the breaking forth of new powers in ourselves, to the release, through our own efforts, of capacities dimly latent in us.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Some Characteristics of the American Ethical Movement (1925)

Perfection, Men, Light, Effort

“A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can’t get rid of the "bad" parts of technology and retain only the "good" parts.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

The ‘Bad’ Parts of Technology Cannot Be Separated From the ‘Good’ Parts, paragraph 121
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

Bad luck, Freedom, Parting, Dependency

“Tremble all ye oppressors of the world! Take warning all ye supporters of slavish governments, and slavish hierarchies! Call no more (absurdly and wickedly) REFORMATION, innovation. You cannot now hold the world in darkness. Struggle no longer against increasing light and liberality. Restore to mankind their rights; and consent to the correction of abuses, before they and you are destroyed together.”

Richard Price (1721–1791) Welsh nonconformist preacher and radical

Source: A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789), pp. 50–51

World, Support, Light

“The world is miserable because men live beneath themselves; the error of modern man is that he wants to reform the world without having either the will or the power to reform man, and this flagrant contradiction, this attempt to make a better world on the basis of a worsened humanity, can only end in the very abolition of what is human, and consequently in the abolition of happiness too. Reforming man means binding him again to Heaven, reestablishing the broken link; it means tearing him away from the reign of the passions, from the cult of matter, quantity and cunning, and reintegrating him into the world of the spirit and serenity, we would even say: into the world of sufficient reason.”

Frithjof Schuon book Understanding Islam

[1998, Understanding Islam, World Wisdom, 26, 0-941532-24-0]
Miscellaneous, Modernity

Tear, Men, Happiness, Passion

“Reform is an accelerating process, as soon as it starts, it will move faster and faster.”

Hu Shuli (1953) Chinese journalist

As quoted in "Transcript of Shuli Hu’s interview" https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6Bdwcq9d-AAJ:https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/34326/PDF/1/play/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=in

“Nations cannot be reformed without the reformation of the youth.”

Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad (1889–1965) Caliph of the Messiah

Quote

Youth

“The first order of business is to reform politics. We have to realise politics that respect our citizens as a genuine source of power. We should nurture a political climate in which the well-being of the people takes precedence over partisan interests.”

Roh Moo-hyun (1946–2009) 9th President of the Republic of Korea

Excerpts from inaugural address (25 February 2003)

People, Business

“I want to make the country a favourable place to do business and an attractive place in which to invest by reforming the markets and systems in a fair and transparent manner based on international standards.”

Roh Moo-hyun (1946–2009) 9th President of the Republic of Korea

Excerpts from inaugural address (25 February 2003)

Country, Business

“We must build strength and maintain vision. That requires inexorable efforts for reform and integration. Reform is a driving force behind growth, and integration is a stepping-stone for a take-off.”

Roh Moo-hyun (1946–2009) 9th President of the Republic of Korea

Excerpts from inaugural address (25 February 2003)

Effort

“We reject a political philosophy asserting that economic reforms can be launched over and against society, above people's heads - one that pushes democratic change aside.”

Tadeusz Mazowiecki (1927–2013) Polish politician and prime minister

"Inaugural address of Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki" https://polishfreedom.pl/en/document/statement-inaugural-address-of-the-prime-minister-tadeusz-mazowiecki-delivered-at-the-seym-session-on-12th-september-1989 (12 September 1989)

People, Change

“Fundamentalism is not accidental but essential to Islam… It sees unchangeability as strength. That is why the word reform is so abhorrent to Muslim thinkers and religious leaders ...”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)

“The reform of training, personnel system, scientific research and the management system of colleges and departments will strengthen the endogenous driving force for the healthy development of universities.”

Liu Yandong (1945) Chinese politician

Source: "刘延东强调：加快建设中国特色现代大学制度" http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/2013-08/23/content_2589585.htm (23 August 2017)

Universe, Training

“It is important to launch core reforms in education and healthcare and boost production primarily through developing agriculture and IT sector. We see the latter as a potentially key sector for future development because there is a real need today for several thousand programmers.”

Ana Brnabić (1975) Prime Minister of Serbia

Source: "Serbia Would Look Very Different Without NALED" in CORD Magazine https://cordmagazine.com/interview/ana-brnabic-serbia-different-without-naled/ (17 June 2016)

Education, Future

“The steps taken today serve to preserve the basic features of socialist renewal. All the reforms will be continued in an atmosphere of order, businesslike discussion and discipline, also economic reform.”

Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923–2014) Polish military officer and politician

Source: Excerpts of Martial law speech (14 December 1981)

“[T]hough affluence is a good thing, and the spirit of compassionate reform is a good thing, in the end a nation survives only to the extent that the spirit of self-discipline and self-sacrifice is strong and vital.”

Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer

Source: Memorandum to Robert T. Hartmann https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/1511691.pdf (1976)

Strong

“I am in my politics for reform and nothing but reform.”

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister on two occasions

Source: Letter to Lady Holland, January 1822

“Our demand for restraint in foreign policy must be stronger than defense contractor lobbyists. Our demand for criminal justice reform must be stronger than the prison-industrial complex.”

Ro Khanna (1976) U.S. Representative from California

Source: Twitter post https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1078674237311860736 (28 December 2018)

Justice

“Agrarian reform is not the whim of a government or the program of a party. It is the product of the pressing need of all the peoples of the world...”

João Goulart (1918–1976) 24th President of Brazil

Source: João Goulart. Discursos Selecionados do Presidente João Goulart, 2010, FUNAG, 978-85-7631-193-5, 85, pt-br http://funag.gov.br/loja/download/641-Discursos_joao_goulart.pdf,

People, World

“We should weigh out the consequences of everything we do, we should consider whether what we are doing is permissible or not. Habit has a big part in reformation of practice.”

Mirza Masroor Ahmad (1950) spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Eid and Friday Sermons Source: Self-reformation: Breaking Bad Habits https://www.alislam.org/friday-sermon/2013-12-20.html, Friday Sermon December 20th, 2013

Parting

“The EU is 50 years old, it is going in the wrong direction. It is time for real reform. The only way to get that is to leave.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Source: Boris Johnson: EU exit 'win-win for us all' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35783049 BBC News (11 March 2016)

Time, Way

“There are reforms that we must pursue with our French partners. I am also thinking of the European Union ..., the international community and obviously our strategic partner France, and other partners will allow us to revive the (country's) economy.”

Henri-Marie Dondra (1966) prime Minister of the Central African Republic

Source: Henri-Marie Dondra (2021) cited in " Central African Republic's new PM makes new economic calls to France https://www.africanews.com/2021/06/16/central-african-republic-s-new-pm-makes-new-economic-calls-to-france/" on Africa News, 16 June 2021.

Country, Communication, Thinking

“I often say that censorship is always a cause for celebration. It is always an opportunity because it reveals fear of reform. It means that the power position is so weak that you have got to care what people think.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), p. 121

People, Fear, Thinking

“And, after all, the humane spirit, which is the motive power of all true schemes of reform, is, by its very essence, independent of belief in what is commonly called "success."”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

Source: " The Poet of Pessimism https://www.henrysalt.co.uk/library/essay/the-poet-of-pessimism/", Vegetarian Review, August 1896 Context: We work for an ideal, not because we believe the ideal is destined to be triumphant, but because we are impelled so to work, and cannot, without violence to our best instincts, act otherwise. We protest against cruelty and injustice for the same reason, not merely because we feel that the dawn of a better day is at hand, but because such a protest has to be made, and we know intuitively that we must help to make it. Of the event we can have no absolute assurance—it rests for other minds and other hands than our—but we can at least be assured that we have done what was natural and inevitable to us, and that, whether successful or unsuccessful, there was no other course for a thoughtful man to take.

Success, Motivation

“The goal of every reform and renewal in the Church is the holiness of its members. The Lord Jesus calls on us constantly to follow the path of ecclesial communion, Catholic faith and holiness in our times, especially among pressing ecclesial and social challenges.”

Nikola Eterović (1951) Croatian Roman Catholic archbishop

Source: German Bishops turn attention to Synod and abuse scandal https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2021-09/germany-bishops-general-assembly-synod-abuse-scandal.html (21 September 2021)

Faith, Time

“The larger hope of a united humanity whose burdens Israel was called to carry and still is appointed to bear must be sounded. The Messianic mission of Israel is central in the teachings of the reform-Synagog. Its symbolism must expose and propose the meaning of this mission. Judaism is preparatory and prelude to the greater glory of "Kingdom come."”

Stephen Samuel Wise (1874–1949) American rabbi (1874-1949)

Free Synagogue Pulpit: Sermons and Addresses Source: p. 76 https://archive.org/details/freesynagoguepu00wisegoog/page/n84/mode/2up

Hope

“May you remember, that the liberty which was acquired for you by your ancestors will be required of you by your descendants: then will you agree to a temperate and timely reform, reconcile the different classes of society, and prevent a convulsion which may involve all in one common ruin.”

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister on two occasions

1820s
Source: Speech to the House of Commons on Parliamentary reform, 25 April 1822

Time

“They cannot roll back the rising tide of reform... The world moves.”

Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927) American suffragist

The Woman Who Ran for President — in 1872 https://www.theattic.space/home-page-blogs/woodhull. The Attic. Retrieved July 9, 2018.

World

“The effect of the land reform bringing land to the peasant masses is to enhance their enthusiasm and their zeal in increasing production and taking part in the war of resistance, and consequently the resistance forces will grow in strength.”

Trường Chinh (1907–1988) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1907-1988)

Implementing the Land Reform (1958) (excerpts)

War, Parting

“I also don’t think we should get too far ahead ourselves on dealing with police reform in that, because they’ve already labeled us as being ‘defund the police’ anything we put forward in terms of the organizational structure to change policing — which I promise you, will occur.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2020, December 2020

Thinking, Change

“Reform only means more conformity. It is form first that is needed.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

A Testament (1957)

Quotes about reform page 9

Quotes about reform
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