Social Reform Quotes & Sayings

Shortsighted people make [experientialism and social reform] opposites, mutually exclusive. [...] The empirical fact is that self-actualizing people, our best experiencers, are also our most compassionate, our great improvers and reformers of society, our most effective fighters against injustice, inequality, slavery, cruelty, exploitation (and also our best fighters for excellence, effectiveness, competence). And it also becomes clearer and clearer that our best 'helpers' are the most fully human persons. What I may call the bodhisattvic path is an integration of self-improvement and social zeal, i.e., the best way to become a better 'helper' is to become a better person. — Abraham H. Maslow

Health care is a far more serious, immediate and destructive problem than social security ... The upfront investment needed to fund system wide [health care] reform ... would be far offset by the savings. — Henry Simmons

The Liberal Democrat Party and the Conservative Party come at things very differently when it comes to Europe. When it comes to political reform, we have a much greater tradition in the Liberal Democrats of social justice and fairness than the Conservatives do. — Nick Clegg

The society with lots of open disagreement and social conflict is the one surging with power in art, science, commerce, constructive social reform, and (most of all) religious revival; the hushed-up society where everyone is afraid to say what he thinks is on the brink of violence and collapse. — Greg Forster

Throw away the newspapers. Discard all the useless debates and gossiping. Start working in silence. Start working on your passion. And make the news yourself. — Abhijit Naskar

Religion and religion alone is the life of India, and when that goes India will die, in spite of politics, in spite of social reforms, in spite of Kubera's wealth poured upon the head of every one of her children. — Swami Vivekananda

Times are tough but they are tough because the government is trying to do the right thing, whether on public service reform, education, health, anti-social behaviour and welfare, or in counter-terrorism — Tony Blair

I have no problem with technological solutions to social problems. The key question for me is, 'Who gets to implement them?' and, 'What kinds of politics of reform do technological solutions smuggle through the back door?' — Evgeny Morozov

The Liberal Party abandoned the principles of reform and social liberalism and has become, instead, just another piece of political machinery in the service of corporatism. — Eric Kierans

This makes it much easier to institute radical departures in public policy. In complex or divided societies, the chances are that a minority - or even a majority - will be forced to concede, often against its will. This makes collective policymaking contentious and favors a minimalist approach to social reform: better to do nothing than to divide people for and against a controversial project. — Tony Judt

The Stoics believed in social reform, but they also believed in personal transformation. More precisely, they thought the first step in transforming a society into one in which people live a good life is to teach people how to make their happiness depend as little as possible on their external circumstances. The second step in transforming a society is to change people's external circumstances. The Stoics would add that if we fail to transform ourselves, then no matter how much we transform the society in which we live, we are unlikely to have a good life. — William B. Irvine

When President George W. Bush attempted to reform Social Security, that proposal was more unpopular with Americans than the Iraq war. People love their entitlements. — Robert Kiyosaki

Labor has a proud history of tackling discrimination and introducing important social reform. — Lara Giddings

All violence demands reform, and all violence desperately begs to be healed. — Bryant McGillns

The President's budget pays for only six months of the war in Iraq and completely overlooks the transition costs of Social Security reform. The Administration always lied about the cost of the Medicare drug bill. — Jim Cooper

Social Security's future has gotten worse, and each year we delay reform adds to the cost we are pushing off onto our children. — John Goodman

If they had won, all they'd have thought about was making more money, the upper class. Abendsen, he's wrong; there would be no social reform, no welfare public works plans - the Anglo-Saxon plutocrats wouldn't have permitted it." Juliana thought, Spoken like a devout Fascist. — Philip K. Dick

The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue in U.S. society, whether domestic or foreign. — Noel Ignatiev

correction of the individual is not sufficient to prevent relapse if we do not also, to the best of our ability, reform the social environment. — Enrico Ferri

The Democrats and Republicans need to come together. I've criticized Democrats for their unwillingness to address entitlement reform and Social Security and Medicare. Republicans, on the other hand, never saw a tax that they liked, even when it meant closing tax loopholes. They don't want to in any way support any revenue enhancements. — Antonio Villaraigosa

A real program of social and economic reform [in Vietnam] would have involved a real conflict ... between the peasants ... and the landlords and the city people ... [it] was difficult ... because it required a concern for the peasants ... it was those capacities ... its American supporters lacked. — Frances FitzGerald

Every woman who has any margin of time or money to spare should adopt some one public interest, some philanthropic undertaking,or some social agitation of reform, and give to that cause whatever time and work she may be able to afford ... — Frances Power Cobbe

The path of social reform like the path to heaven at any rate in India, is strewn with many difficulties. Social reform in India has few friends and many critics. — Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences ... — Susan B. Anthony

Rape is more of a fundamental threat to self-determination of tribal nations than the drawbacks federal reform could ever be. Rape and child sexual abuse are directly related to most of the social challenges tribal nations face, and when people are hurting, they cannot effectively govern themselves or provide guidance and support for the children in the community. — Sarah Deer

There are many commitments I have made for reducing poverty. One is to reform social security. Social security reaches only 44 percent of Mexicans. One of my goals is to give social security to all the people. — Enrique Pena Nieto

The dread of a permanently wicked human nature takes two forms. One is a practical fear: that social reform is a waste of time because human nature is unchangeable. The other is a deeper concern, which grows out of the Romantic belief that what is natural is good. According to the worry, if scientists suggest it is "natural" - part of human nature - to be adulterous, violent, ethnocentric, and selfish, they would be implying that these traits are good, not just unavoidable. — Steven Pinker

And in terms of entitlement reforms, we have to save them from themselves, because if we don't reform social security and we don't reform Medicare, they're going to actually implode. — Ben Quayle

Sometimes going to jail is just the price you have to pay for social reform or social change. — Paul Watson

Men must be capable of imagining and executing and insisting on social change if they are to reform or even maintain civilization, and capable too of furnishing the rebellion which is sometimes necessary if society is not to perish of immobility. — Rebecca West

We must experiment, fail, and try again, but beginning with a critique of legal reform and a commitment to center the most vulnerable moves us away from some of the most common, obvious pitfalls of neoliberal social movement strategies. — Dean Spade

The welfare state and its funding are at the center of current political debate in the United States. Today, the country is divided on whether or not the federal government should deliver regulations covering social provisions.
...
The United States has a long tradition of welfare programs starting in the early days of the new republic in 1776. Payments to the poor, to civil war veterans, or to those who were "unable to work due to their age or physical health" were common. Attempts to reform the law helping the poor and unemployed to get work have a long history, as do the fights against abuses of the same system. — Werner Neff

Every strategy for real social change - land reform, education, public health, the equitable distribution of natural resources ... - has been cleverly, cunningly, and consistently scuttled and rendered ineffectual by those castes and that class of people which has a stranglehold on the political process. — Arundhati Roy

I welcome the Democrats' ideas on Social Security. I think it is very important to make a bipartisan reform. — Jack Kingston

As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it
along the lines that President Bush proposed. — John McCain

Reform immigration to make it easy for individuals to come over here, be documented, pay taxes - immigration reform is needed to state that its about work, its not about welfare ... Set up a grace period where they can get a work permit ... social security card so that they can pay income tax, social security, Medicare. — Gary Johnson

There's been a lot said about Social Security reform. What has been left out of the debate is the double tax on Social Security benefits. I believe it's time to get rid of a tax that punishes seniors and discourages work and retirement savings. — Rob Simmons

The most thoroughly and relentlessly damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all 'Damned Things' is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this 'Damned Thing' into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into the slot assigned it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychologist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into their slots. — Robert Anton Wilson

You are born to build the society, not to follow it. — Abhijit Naskar

Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform. — Samuel Smiles

An educator ... a good one that is, inspires others to be even better than herself. — Jill Telford

Essentially we need a new social consensus for economic reform as New Labour has achieved in Britain. — Peter Mandelson

My temperament and habit had always kept me rather in the middle of the road; in politics as well as in social reform I had been for "the best possible." But now I was pushed far toward the left on the subject of the war and I became gradually convinced that in order to make the position of the pacifist clear it was perhaps necessary that at least a small number of us should be forced into an unequivocal position. — Jane Addams

On the one hand, we have the mass; on the other, its historic goal, located outside of existing society. On one hand we have the day-to-day struggle; on the other, the socialist revolution ... It follows that this movement can best advance by tacking betwixt and between the two dangers ... One is the loss of its mass character, the other the abandonment of its goal. One is the danger of sinking back to the condition of a sect; the other, the danger of becoming a movement of bourgeois social reform. — Rosa Luxemburg

What a country of lazy shits, with fucking hypocritical politicians claiming that people actually wanted to work if they could. Norwegians voted for the Socialist Party because it made it a human right to shirk their jobs, and who the hell wouldn't vote for a party that gave you three days off without a doctor's note, gave you carte blanche to sit at home and jerk off or go skiing or recover from a hangover? The Socialist Party knew, of course, what a perk this was, but still tried to appear responsible, preened themselves with their "trust in most people" and declared the right to malinger as some kind of social reform. The Progress Party was even more fucking infuriating, buying itself votes with tax cuts and hardly bothering to conceal the fact. — Jo Nesbo

I wish that the Democrats would put some effort into Social Security reform, illegal immigration's reform, tax reform, or some of the other real issues that are out there. — Jack Kingston

There's nothing good about being certain about things. And I don't think there's any real talent in using language in a manipulative way, with phrases like "tax relief" or "Social Security reform." It's politically clever, but it's also completely disingenuous, and it's not something to aspire to. — Jonathan Safran Foer

No matter what politicians promise, Social Security reform will not change the fact that your money is taken from your paycheck and sent to Washington, where it will be spent. — Ron Paul

Social questions are too sectional, too topical, too temporal to move a man to the mighty effort which is needed to produce greatpoetry. Prison reform may nerve Charles Reade to produce an effective and businesslike prose melodrama; but it could never produce Hamlet, Faust, or Peer Gynt. — George Bernard Shaw

Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by complaints and denunciation; by the formation of parties, or the making of revolutions; but by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action; and when there is correct thought, right action will follow. — Henry George

It became obvious to me that the generation who changed the world were my parents' generation, and not only in terms of the Second World War, but if you look at all the social legislation of the '60s - abortion, homosexual law reform, equal pay - it wasn't done by my generation; it was done by people who were adults. — Linda Grant

First know the Self and then talk of social reformation. — Abhijit Naskar

Do you know what social justice is? Do you know what social reform is? I didn't either, but reform and social justice are what I intend to do. — Silvio Santos

Each nation has its own peculiar method of work. Some work through politics, some through social reforms, some through other lines. With us, religion is the only ground along which we can move. — Swami Vivekananda

To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming, first and foremost, at political freedom is the very height of ignorance and futility. — Sri Aurobindo

Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870, having produced fifteen novels, many of which can confidently be called great, as well as having accomplished outstanding work in activities into which his insatiable need to expend his vast energies - to achieve, to prevail - carried him: journalism, editing, acting, social reform. — Robert Gottlieb

I've developed a lot of reform proposals myself and been accused of trying to destroy Social Security, when the whole point was to try to save it. I think most people know that Social Security is bankrupt. — Jim DeMint

Emancipation came to the colored race in America as a war measure. It was an act of military necessity. Manifestly it would have come without war, in the slower process of humanitarian reform and social enlightenment. — Wendell Willkie

There are things you can do with this knowledge, like always save room for dessert. Seriously, imagine planning a vacation with the peak-end rule in mind. Your overall pleasure will be enhanced if you end it on a high note. It's certainly something for me to keep in mind in planning my workshops. Maybe people will believe the whole presentation was terrific if I end with something especially compelling. You should also keep in mind that here is a way your brain consistently distorts your perception of your own happiness and misery. Politicians use this principle all the time - that's why they propose their most audacious policies just after they're elected, assuming that we'll be lulled into not caring, as we adapt to their new reality. Remember GWB's attempt at social security reform? — Anonymous

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism. — Gloria Steinem

Without significant reform, the Social Security Administration will be legally and financially unable to pay full promised benefits within a generation. — Ron Lewis

Love implies great freedom - not to do what you like. But love comes only when the mind is very quiet, disinterested, not self-centered. These are not ideals. If you have no love, do what you will - go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems - you are a dead human being. And without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there is no risk; there is no conflict. Then love is the essence of virtue. And a mind that is not in a state of love is not a religious mind at all. And it is only the religious mind that is freed from problems, and that knows the beauty of love and truth. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners. — Mary Wollstonecraft

There is a need for Social Security reform to ensure its stability, and Congress must act. — Grace Napolitano

If you have no love, do what you will - go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems - you are a dead human being. Without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. — Carl Jung

The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The best social reform program in the world is a job. — Ronald Reagan

Actually, the New Deal's central dedication was to business recovery rather than social reform. — Michael Parenti

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. — John Dewey

Let's put our money where our mouth is; let's invest in the future by investing in the education of our youth and the re-education of those who need it and aren't so young anymore. It's not charity; it's an investment in the mental, intellectual, and social infrastructure of our country and our planet. Charity is something you give to corporations when they commit crimes of fraud and plunge the world into economic turmoil. — Steve Bivans

What is natural, needs to be looked upon, scrutinized and reshaped by each generation of the world, to make it compatible with the path of progress of a civilized society. — Abhijit Naskar

I didn't become leader to transform the Liberal Democrats into an enlarged form of the Electoral Reform Society. It's not the be all and end all for us. There are other very, very key ambitions in politics, not least social mobility and life chances, that I care about as passionately if not more. — Nick Clegg

The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments
not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools
will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession. — David Blankenhorn

For me, the beauty of feminism is that it is a social and political movement that has redefined the power and obligation of the self: self-possession and self-regulation as a tool for social reform. — Vivian Gornick

Every dollar and every moment of care devoted to increasing the individual importance of people, all skill and training, all fine organization to humanize work, every increase of political expression, is a protection against idle use of our military power, against any attempt to convert legitimate and necessary preparation for defense into an instrument of conquest. It may be said with justice that the man is dangerous who talks loudly about military preparation and is uninterested in social reform. It is the people engaged in adding to the values of civilization who have earned the right to talk about its defense. — Franklin Foer

Americans need accurate information in order to consider Social Security reform. Too bad the media can't be counted upon to provide it — Herman Cain

Hy is it that in problematic situations almost everyone resorts to axioms and societal remedies that in actuality almost nobody believes in? ... ask yourself, have you ever known anyone whose marriage was saved by a marriage counselor, whose drinking was cured by a psychiatrist, whose son was kept out of reform school by a social worker? — James Lee Burke

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reform. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain. — Anatole France

If a God tends to reinforce the prejudices in a society instead of diminishing them from the society, then such God is worse than Cancer. — Abhijit Naskar

China is a developing country with a huge population, and also a developing country in a crucial stage of reform. In this context, China still faces many challenges in economic and social development. And a lot still needs to be done in China, in terms of human rights. — Hu Jintao

Of course, no-one thinks the EU is perfect. In recent years, the pace of social reform has slowed. But staying in offers the chance to rebuild a vision of Europe for workers, regardless of the passport they hold. — Frances O'Grady

I'm the guy that has written at great length about exactly how we should profoundly reform Social Security. If I were afraid of going after entitlements, I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have put Medicaid reform in this budget, I wouldn't have called for the reductions in spending, which people will scream about, but I think are necessary. — Pat Toomey

Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage. — Carl Bernstein

Don't waste your energy in fighting the old. Use it to build the new. — Abhijit Naskar

Social reforms are never carried out by the weakness of the strong; but always by the strength of the weak. — Karl Marx

I do think that Social Security reform needs to be bipartisan, and we are going to have to reach that in this debate at some time before we can find really meaningful reform. — Judy Biggert

The proper task of social reform is to remove poverty from society and to ensure that people do not sell their conscience to make a living. — Periyar E.V. Ramasamy

You don't die when your body stops functioning. You die when your name is uttered for the last time in the world. — Abhijit Naskar

Those life experiences that helped shaped my political beliefs are with me in every position I take and every vote that I cast - whether it be in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, or improving our nation's education system. — Mark Takano

The problem of the social reformer, therefore, is not merely to seek means of security, for if these means when found provide no deep satisfaction the security will be thrown away for the glory of adventure. — Bertrand Russell

The American university has become the final stage of the most all encompassing initiation rite the world has ever known. No society in history has been able to survive without ritual or myth, but ours is the first which has needed such a dull, protracted, destructive, and expensive initiation into its myth. The contemporary world civilization is also the first one which has found it necessary to rationalize its fundamental initiation ritual in the name of education. We cannot begin a reform of education unless we first understand that neither individual learning nor social equality can be enhanced by the ritual of schooling. We cannot go beyond the consumer society unless we first understand that obligatory public schools inevitably reproduce such a society, no matter what is taught in them. — Ivan Illich

The social side of Washington was to be taken for granted as three-fourths of existence. Politics and reform became the detail, and waltzing the profession — Henry Adams

Social Security must be preserved and strengthened. But we need to be candid about the costs and willing to make the tough choices that real reform will require. — Lindsey Graham

Self-reform automatically brings about social reform. — Ramana Maharshi

The harm done by the FDA does not result from defects in the people in charge - unless it be a defect to be human. Many have been able and devoted civil servants. However, social, political, and economic pressures determine the behavior of the people supposedly in charge of a government agency to a far greater extent than they determine its behavior. No doubt there are exceptions, but they are rare - almost as rare as barking cats. That does not mean that effective reform is impossible. But it requires taking account of the political laws governing the behavior of government agencies, not simply berating officials for inefficiency and waste or questioning their motives and urging them to do better. The — Milton Friedman

Being resolute today means to act within the framework of political and social pluralism and the rule of law to provide conditions for continued reform and prevent a breakdown of the state and economic collapse, prevent the elements of chaos from becoming catastrophic.
All this requires taking certain tactical steps, to search for various ways of addressing both short- and long-term tasks. Such efforts and political and economic steps, agreements based on reasonable compromise, are there for everyone to see. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Conservatism stands on man's confessed limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitude; conservatism on circumstance; liberalism on power; one goes to make an adroit member of the social frame; the other to postpone all things to the man himself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights. — B.R. Ambedkar

Like George Sand, the feminism of the present day asserts the right of free thought against the creed of authority in every field; the solidarity of mankind and the cause of peace against the patriotism of militarism; social reform against the existing relations of society. — Ellen Key

Not too many years ago, both parties acknowledged that our entitlement commitments were a sword hanging over our heads. But when President George W. Bush tried to begin discussions on Social Security reform, Democrats ridiculed and demonized him and told seniors he was after their nest eggs. — David Limbaugh