Quotes About Reform

Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.

Luther's point was that, according to Scripture, salvation is not a bake sale:

One of the slight variances between the Stalwarts and their fellow Republicans the Half-Breeds is that the Half-Breeds, partly out of frustration with the Civil War sainthood of Grant, were clean-shirt guys more interested in stumping for mild civil service reform—a platform whose merit would make for a less stirring campaign song. A bureaucrat should pass a test, hurrah, hurrah!

While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

A few, more dedicated to public service, in government, in the Cabinet even, stifling yawns as popular opinion forced them into legislating for reforms that they must have hated.

House and Senate Republicans are now united in adopting earmark bans. We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust.

I am for peace, retrenchment, and for reformthirty years ago the great watchwords of the great Liberal Party.

In the United States it is comparatively easy to raise tax rates and to introduce tax-avoidance devices, and it is comparatively hard to lower tax rates and to eliminate tax-avoidance devices.

But after all the horse trading between Democrats and Republicans—and reformers, bankers, and lobbyists—I fear that its complex, obtuse regulations (some 170 separate rules are still being developed) involved in limiting proprietary trading by banks makes me wish we'd taken the simple step of restoring the separation of deposit taking banks from investment banks. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 worked well until it was gradually eroded and finally repealed in 1999.

It would be better to have no school at all than the schools we now have. Encouraged, instead of frightened, children could learn several languages before reaching age of four, at that age engaging in the invention of their own languages. Play'd be play instead of being, as now, release of repressed anger.

For I fear not to declare, that what I have here given may be regarded as a summary of the very doctrine which, they vociferate, ought to be punished with confiscation, exile, imprisonment, and flames, as well as exterminated by land and sea.

the Church may exist without any apparent form, and, moreover, that the form is not ascertained by that external splendour which they foolishly admire, but by a very different mark, namely, by the pure preaching of the word of God, and the due administration of the sacraments.

How happy I might be, if only she was less greedy, better tempered, not addicted to raking up old grudges, more affectionate, with slightly yellower hair, slimmer, and about twenty years younger! But what is the good of expecting such a woman to reform?

The time is now for Congress to address health care in America.

Too many of my constituents, like many other hard working Americans across the country, are suffering unnecessarily due to our flawed health care system.

Growth in moral virtue is a project of monumental proportions. "Disciplining and reforming desires" sounds so simple. But how many really succeed? The words of Our Lord come to mind here: "Narrow the way and few there are who find it" (see Mt 7:14). What we are suggesting here is that friendship is one of the most critical natural helps to walking the straight and narrow path.

During the reign of James I some Puritans grew discouraged at the pace of reform and separated entirely from the Church of England. After a short sojourn in the Netherlands, one group of "separating Puritans," better known historically as the "Pilgrims," eventually established the Plymouth Colony in 1620 in what is now southeastern Massachusetts.

On November 5, 1414, the Council of Constance opened its proceedings. The participants faced a daunting agenda: (1) to find a way to heal the schism; (2) to douse the flames of the Bohemian revolt led by John Hus; (3) to establish a means to reform the church of abuses.

If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow.

His rough tongue is a sign of a president who is dismantling the traditional presidency.

I stagnated in prison a long time, and I have wasted most of my life.

Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you.