Quotes About Reform

To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under the dominion of the plunder league of the professional politicians who are controlled and sustained by the great beneficiaries of privilege and reaction.

The existence of any method, standard, custom or practice is no reason for its continuance when a better is offered.

However, my first visits to the tenement-house districts in question made me feel that, whatever the theories might be, as a matter of practical common sense I could not conscientiously vote for the continuance of the conditions which I saw. These conditions rendered it impossible for the families of the tenement-house workers to live so that the children might grow up fitted for the exacting duties of American citizenship.

The real meaning of revolution is not a change in management … but a change in man.

The only way to reform some people is to chloroform them.

The roster of progressives who advocated exclusion of hereditary inferiors reads like a Who's Who of American economic reform.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

It is always necessary that we point out our flaws for the betterment of our country. If we do not, how can our conditions improve? But the atmosphere is such that if we criticize the government we are branded as anti-nationals.

The most money we have ever been able to get appropriated for the juvenile justice bills was $55 million a year, about one-tenth of what was necessary.

France desperately needs to work on its competitiveness and attractiveness.

The law is only our best approximation of justice, and the law needs constant revision.

Alexander II really used autocracy well to negotiate the freeing of the serfs in 1861.

I don't know when network executives will get out of the Dark Ages.

The New Deal saved capitalism - saved it from the big-time capitalists - though many of the big-timers didn't see it that way.

I think it is commonplace for parties to change candidates and reshuffle ministries to bring in new faces.

The new generation of Labour is different. Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics.

If you grew up where I grew up, you would experience a very different criminal justice system than Camden, New Jersey.

Together we are building a new Mexico.

You don't do new things and try to change the system without generating debate.

In New York City, the idea that district schools advance equality is a myth.

Excessive stop-and-frisk divides communities. That's why the New York City Police Department has moved away from it.