Quotes About Reform

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. . . .

Americans tend to prefer their presidents on horseback: heroes who dream big and sound trumpets. There is, however, another kind of leader – quieter and less glamorous but no less significant – whose virtues repay our attention. There is greatness in political lives dedicated more to steadiness than to boldness, more to reform than to revolution, more to management of complexity than to the making of mass movements.

Reform is slow work, and it is for neither the fainthearted nor the impatient.

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions Ã¢â'¬Â¦ but I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.… We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. He

As Thoreau wrote in his 1849 essay "Civil Disobedience," "Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

The roots of King's worldview can be traced to the Bible up through the work of Walter Rauschenbusch, a Rochester, New York, minister and scholar who preached the "Social Gospel" of Christian-inspired reform, love, and action on earth.

But when we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions of a whole people suddenly to ideal right, we see the wisdom of Solon's remark that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear, and that will be chiefly to reform the waste of public money, and thus drive away the vultures who prey on it, and improve some little on old routines." Even

get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights

If a member of the Executive or Legislature does wrong, the day is never far distant when the people will remove him." Perhaps, Jefferson thought, outrage over the Burr verdict could be channeled into a constitutional amendment making judges more accountable to the public.

What are you so mad about? That we still have a government? We still have "traffic lights." We're sorry. The government's not perfect, but some people wish it was better, not gone.

Of] particular importance is the relationship between education and the political process.

whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

And I have often wished, that a Law were enacted to hang up half a Dozen Bankers every year;

In every truth, the beneficiaries of a system cannot be expected to destroy it.

We should be proud that our Prophet came into the world with the message of Islam to change it for the better, and not for the worse, or to keep things as they are.

An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.

All great reforms have a unique aspect where, at first, one man steps forward as a champion to represent many millions of supporters. His goal is the same as the heart's desire inside hundreds of thousands of men from centuries before. The world waits until someone finally appears as the herald of the masses to raise the flag of their deepest desire and lead them to victory with a new idea.

If some Church dignitaries should misuse religious ceremonies or religious teaching to injure their own nation, their opponents should never take the same road and fight them with the same weapons... To a political leader, the religious teachings and practices of his people should be sacred and inviolable. Otherwise he shouldn't be a statesman but a reformer-if he has the necessary qualities for such a task!

I am passionately committed to state education.

Democracy opens new vistas and opportunities. We should use the opportunities it offers to correct past mistakes not to blunder anew.

While I support initiatives to improve quality and efficiency in Medicare, I do not believe that these efficiencies should come at the cost of patient well being.

Obamacare is, 'Patient, heal yourself.'

We can bring health care back to the states and bring power back to patients. I think of that commercial from 1984 when Apple took a hammer and broke the screen.

Paul Ryan wants to get health care repaired and certainly Dan Donovan wants to.