Quotes About Reactionary

A necessity has two ends: the reactionary and the progressive. History teaches that persons and parties which drag at the opposite ends of a necessity turn out in the long run on opposite sides of the barricade.

American fundamentalist thought connected strongly to reactionary political ideology as nervous Christians pushed back against liberal reforms on many fronts.

I think Hollywood's gotten more reactionary and conservative over the years, because there's no longer art in Hollywood. Art suffers in Hollywood.

Let's see," mused the dragon, "that doesn't tell us much, does it? What sort of a word is this? Is it an epithet, do you think?" Gawaine could do no more than nod. "Why, of course," exclaimed the dragon, "reactionary Republican.

Earnestness is good; it means business. But fanaticism overdoes, and is consequently reactionary.

still regarded as highly eccentric outside reactionary conservative and fascist circles,' notes Richard Thurlow, 'it is interesting to note that some historians now argue that secret societies like the IRA and the Mafia have indeed played a significant role in world events …

But the real danger is that liberal environmentalists and feminists will strengthen the right by lending credibility to reactionary arguments. Adopting the argument that population growth causes global warming endorses the strongest argument the right has against the social and economic changes that are really needed to stop climate change and environmental destruction.

Most people don't take the long-term view. The media is more of a short-term reactionary view.

There is not a reactionary, however extreme, who dares speak ill of the god People. It took an eccentric like Nietzsche to dare such a thing, and it makes him look like the exception that proves the rule.

To refuse to work in the reactionary trade unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie, the labor aristocrats, or the "workers who have become completely bourgeois".

Anyone who questions the value of the 'fact' draws down on himself the most severe reproaches of our day: he is a 'reactionary,' he wants to go back to the 'good old days,' and those who make these reproaches do not realize that such questioning is, perhaps, the only revolutionary attitude possible at the present time.

Today, religion in the empirical sense—the word and the thing—is more and more the recourse of the reactionary, the resentful, the undereducated, the anti-scientific, an alibi for white supremacism and sexism, packing its guns, standing its ground against immigrants and people who look different, instead of welcoming "the widow, the orphan, and the stranger," as the prophets enjoin.

It should come as no surprise that the defense of racial slavery gave rise to a profoundly reactionary worldview.

Similarly, a little later on, the author will point out to us, among the crowd he describes, a "reactionary." That is common enough designation today. But here, I ask Mr. Flaubert again: "A reactionary? How can you recognize one at a distance? Who told you? How do you know about it?" The author evidently is amusing himself, and all these characteristics are invented on a whim.

Without democracy there is no freedom. Violence, no matter who is using it, is always reactionary.

Any movement in history which attempts to perpetuate itself, becomes reactionary.

A reactionary revolution is nothing but a high-speed evolution backwards!

History respects revolutions; and yet, if a revolution is progressive, support it; if it is reactionary, resist it!

The ability to be tough-minded remains useful; but by now, the fact that we are all in trouble in terms of both nature and culture can only be denied by those who become overly conservative and blindly reactionary. The more tender-hearted imagination that suggests we are all in this together and that there must be an underlying unity in life may be the only way to survive.

Revolution is progressive and seeks the strengthening of the state; rebellion is reactionary and seeks its disappearance. The revolutionary is a potential government official; the rebel is a reactionary in action.

Being a reactionary is not about believing in certain solutions, but about having an acute sense of the complexity of the problems.

The intelligent man quickly reaches reactionary conclusions. Today, however, the universal consensus of fools turns him into a coward. When they interrogate him in public, he denies being a Galilean.

Revolution is progressivist and seeks the strengthening of the state; rebellion is reactionary and seeks its disappearance. The revolutionary is a potential government official; the rebel is a reactionary in action.

Anguish over the decline of civilization is the affliction of a reactionary. The democrat cannot lament the disappearance of something of which he is ignorant.