Social Reform Quotes

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

Cruelty to animals is cruelty and a vile thing; but cruelty to a man is not cruelty, it is treason. Tyranny over a man is not tyranny, it is rebellion, for man is royal. Now, the practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is pitiful, but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades. This dark scientific pity, this brutal pity, has an elemental sincerity of its own; but it is entirely useless for all ends of social reform. Democracy swept Europe with the sabre when it was founded upon the Rights of Man. It has done literally nothing at all since it has been founded only upon the wrongs of man. Or, more strictly speaking, its recent failure has been due to its not admitting the existence of any rights, or wrongs, or indeed of any humanity. Evolution (the sinister enemy of revolution) does not especially deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man. And all the despair about the poor, and the cold and repugnant pity for them, has been largely due to the vague sense that they have literally relapsed into the state of the lower animals. ~ G.K. Chesterton

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

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

Rise to become human again, my friend. Become the human, that talks humans, acts humans and lives human. ~ Abhijit Naskar

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

The fallacy of the socialists37 lies in supposing that because in the present stage of European society property as a source of power is predominant, the same is true of India, or the same was true of Europe in the past. Religion, social status, and property are all sources of power and authority which one man has to control the liberty of another. One is predominant at one stage; the other is predominant at another stage. That is the only difference. If liberty is the ideal, and if liberty means the destruction of the dominion which one man holds over another, then obviously it cannot be insisted upon that economic reform must be the one kind of reform worthy of pursuit. If the source of power and dominion is, at any given time or in any given society, social and religious, then social reform and religious reform must be accepted as the necessary sort of reform. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

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

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

Even in small matters, we can say, our intellect is not resolute. It will be resolute only if we fix our minds on one purpose and cling to it with discrimination, only if we work without looking for immediate results. At present, whether in politics or social reform we leap from one branch to another. I began with the illustration of a ball of earth and told you that, even if we concentrate on that, we can realise the atman. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

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

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

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

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

Love is the most dangerous and uncertain element in life; and because we do not want to be uncertain, because we do not want to be in danger, we live in the mind. A man who loves is dangerous, and we do not want to live dangerously; we want to live efficiently, we want to live merely in the framework of organization because we think organizations are going to bring order and peace in the world. Organizations have never brought order and peace. Only love, only goodwill, only mercy can bring order and peace, ultimately and therefore now. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

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

Bring all your power out my friend, and throw away such Gods, such doctrines, such institutions, that impede in the path of human progress. ~ Abhijit Naskar

They're both plutocracies, rule by the rich. 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. ~ Philip K. Dick

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

I urge you my dear sibling, to offer your body and mind as a living holy sacrifice to the service of humanity, for this is true worship. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Blonde hair and black hair are the two poles of human nature. Black hair signifies virility, courage, frankness, activity, whereas blonde hair symbolises femininity, tenderness, weakness, and passivity. Therefore a blonde is in fact doubly a woman. A princess can only be blonde. That's also why, to be as feminine as possible, women dye their hair yellow- but never black"

"I'm curious about how pigments exercise their influence over the human soul", said Bertlef doubtfully.
"it's not a matter of pigments. A blonde unconsciously adapts herself to her hair. Especially if the blonde is a brunette who dyes her hair yellow. She tries to be faithful to her hair colour and behaves like a fragile creature, a shallow doll, she demands tenderness and service, courtesy and alimony, she's incapable of doing anything for herself, all refinement on the outside and coarseness on the inside. If black hair became a universal fashion, life on this world would clearly be better. It would be the most useful social reform ever achieved. ~ Milan Kundera

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

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

Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium. ~ John B. S. Haldane

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

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

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

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

Taking care of your own family is good, taking care of your neighbor's family is better and taking care of all the families in your neighborhood is the best. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Equal protection under the law is not a hard principle to convince Americans of. The difficulty comes in persuading them that it has been violated in particular cases, and of the need to redress the wrong. Prejudice and indifference run deep. Education, social reform, and political action can persuade some. But most people will not feel the sufferings of others unless they feel, even in an abstract way, that 'it could have been me or someone close to me'. Consider the astonishingly rapid transformation of American attitudes toward homosexuality and even gay marriage over the past decades. Gay activism brought these issues to public attention but attitudes were changed during tearful conversations over dinner tables across American when children came out to their parents (and, sometimes, parents came out to their children). Once parents began to accept their children, extended families did too, and today same-sex marriages are celebrated across the country with all the pomp and joy and absurd overspending of traditional American marriages. Race is a wholly different matter. Given the segregation in American society white families have little chance of seeing and therefore understanding the lives of black Americans. I am not black male motorist and never will be. All the more reason, then, that I need some way to identify with one if I am going to be affected by his experience. And citizenship is the only thing I know we share. The more differences between us are emphasized, th ~ Mark Lilla

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

Thousands of people have entered churches without discovering a vital experience with Jesus Christ. The substitutes have been handed them in the guise of religious rituals, good works, community effort, or social reform ... none of which can gain a person a right relationship with God. ~ Billy Graham

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

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

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

If the social stress is physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, the way to treat the depression is to stop the abuse. Unfortunately, advocates of the biochemical treatment of depression have gone along with the view of academic theory and popular culture that the problem is entirely within the skull of the victim. Enthusiasm for biochemical treatment and research is partly due to the fact that it helps perpetuate the myth that suicide and depression should be treated by changing the victim, not by changing ourselves. As long as we have a narrow view of the causes of biochemical imbalance, such as limiting it to innate genetic defects, we can practice denial on the social complicity in the causation of suicide. The narrow view does nothing to help reduce pain and increase resources for the millions of people whose problems do not respond to medications. It also deprives us of an opportunity for progress in a much broader area for social reform. The dynamics behind the oppression of the suicidal is similar to the dynamics of other forms of injustice; progress in one area can support progress in other areas. ~ David L. Conroy

God doesn't help anyone, humans do. ~ 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

Become the destroyer of sects - become the breaker of privileges – become the messenger of equality – become the prophet of goodness. ~ Abhijit Naskar

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

A word of advice. Don't take up that sentimental attitude over the poor. See that she doesn't, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one's sorry for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places, and it's absurd to pretend that any one is responsible personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk's loss of salary. It's just the shoe pinching - no one can help it; and it might easily have been worse."

Helen quivered with indignation.

"By all means subscribe to charities - subscribe to them largely - but don't get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no Social Question - except for a few journalists who try to get a living out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have been and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal - "

"I didn't say - "

"Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No, no. You can't. There always have been rich and poor. I'm no fatalist. Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal forces" (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the personal), "and there always will be rich and poor. You can't deny it" (and now it was a respectful voice) - "and you can't deny that, in spite of all, t ~ E.M. Forster

Never depend on a single income. Make Investments to create a second source." - Warren Buffet ~ Archie Lee

So much history can be lost if no one tells the story
so that's what I do. I tell the stories. This is my way of fighting for social change. ~ Alanis Obomsawin

From spiritual connection springs kindness, connection, social activism, and love. ~ Dani Shapiro

Consistency. Clarity. Courage. I like to stand for consistency, clarity and courage in my thoughts, words, and actions. ~ Sharad Vivek Sagar

DON'T BE SO PREPARED FOR THE BATTLE,
TO THE POINT YOU FIND YOURSELF UNPREPARED FOR THE VICTORY!

WHEN YOU TRULY BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, YOU PREPARE FOR IT ALL! ~ Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality. ~ Erich Fromm

These days, in the world of apps and social media and … idiot friends, it is literally impossible to avoid spoilers.

If a character dies, it is gonna be the number one trending topic on Twitter, it is gonna be the top trending story on Facebook - and Reddit and Tumblr just turn into a completely uncensored memorial service of memes.

This happens all the time with sports results, but - I shit you not - I once got a notification from the BBC News app saying that a character in a show I was watching had just died! I thought that news notifications are supposed to be for impending natural disasters, not for just ruining my bloody afternoon. ~ Dan Howell

Probably the most common - and damaging - misunderstanding about personality type is that introverts are antisocial and extroverts are pro-social. ~ Susan Cain

I have the highest number of Social Security recipients of any Member of Congress, and it is always good to hear about how women in their districts are affected by any changes, by the need for changes in Social Security. ~ Ginny Brown-Waite

When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s. ~ Barack Obama

Social media is just that - social. ~ John Patrick Hickey

Now it's time to focus on basics for people in our neighborhoods ... and real ethics reform at City Hall. ~ Laura Miller

There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple nor even a solitary column ... However, out fates at least are social. Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre. Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their actions faintly foretell it. We are inclined to lay the chief stress on likeness and not on difference, and in foreign bodies we admit that there are many degrees of warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I think that happiness is very important. But I will also say that the most effective people I know are not the happiest, and there is something to be said for effectiveness. Even if we were managing a team of nearly a hundred thousand volunteer social media users, living with my girlfriend and my monkey, watching Netflix, having breakfast, and taking care of a single lovingly spoiled potato plant was pretty fucking relaxing. But I think there's somethng inside of us, something that blooms in us in adolescence and never leaves...and it's just...want. Some people have more of it than others, but I think we all have it. And the most amazing tool that I think anyone in the world can have is the ability to control and direct that want.
Some people work to minimize it with mindfulness and meditation; some people let it grow and run free and take over their lives. But some people, and I consider myself one of them, study their want, refine it, and build an engine that burns it. Even if their want pushes all in one direction, they can tack against it like a sailboat, getting somewhere better than where they wanted to be. ~ Hank Green

The pathbreaker who disdains the applause he may get from the crowd of his contemporaries does not depend on his own age's ideas. He is free to say with Schillers Marquis Posa: "This century is not ripe for my ideas; I live as a citizen of centuries to come." The genius' work too is embedded in the sequence of historical events, is conditioned by the achievements of preceding generations, and is merely a chapter in the evolution of ideas. But it adds something new and unheard of to the treasure of thoughts and may in this sense be called creative. The genuine history of mankind is the history of ideas. It is ideas that distinguish man from ali other beings. Ideas engender social institutions, political changes, technological methods of production, and ali that is called economic conditions. And in searching for their origin we inevitably come to a point at which ali that can be asserted is that a man had an idea. Whether the name of this man is known or not is of secondary importance.
This is the meaning that history attaches to the notion of individuality. Ideas are the ultimate given of historical inquiry. Ali that can be said about ideas is that they carne to pass. The historian may point out how a new idea fitted into the ideas developed by earlier generations and how it may be considered a continuation of these ideas and their logical sequei. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. ~ Glenn Beck

Remember that there exists a certain malevolence about the formation of any social order. It is the struggle for existence by an artificial entity. Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. Many injuries occur and, thus, the need for laws. The law develops its own power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma can be healed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer. ~ Frank Herbert

Nor are introverts necessarily shy. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not. One reason that people confuse the two concepts is that they sometimes overlap (though psychologists debate to what degree). Some psychologists map the two tendencies on vertical and horizontal axes, with the introvert-extrovert spectrum on the horizontal axis, and the anxious-stable spectrum on the vertical. With this model, you end up with four quadrants of personality types: calm extroverts, anxious (or impulsive) extroverts, calm introverts, and anxious introverts. In other words, you can be a shy extrovert, like Barbra Streisand, who has a larger-than-life personality and paralyzing stage fright; or a non-shy introvert, like Bill Gates, who by all accounts keeps to himself but is unfazed by the opinions of others. ~ Susan Cain

Most poverty and suffering - whether in a country, a family or a person - flows from disorganization. A stable social order is an artificial accomplishment, the result of an accumulation of habits, hectoring, moral stricture and physical coercion. Once order is dissolved, it takes hard measures to restore it ~ David Brooks

Changing the structure and rules of the global economy will require a mass movement based on messages of compassion, justice, and equality, as well as collaborative and democratic processes ... If we stay positive, inclusive, and democratic, we have a truly historic opportunity to build a global movement for social justice. ~ Medea Benjamin

Social networks particularly will tend to converge and consolidate over time, especially because they're inherently governed by network effects. So the bigger ones will just get bigger, their value will multiply exponentially, and the smaller ones will become less and less relevant. ~ Clara Shih

Into the novel goes such taste as I have for rational behaviour and social portraiture. The short story, as I see it to be, allows for what is crazy about humanity: obstinacies, inordinate heroisms, immortal longings. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

Social networks are so full of wasted time - they could be compared to a waste disposal system. Flush, before you go and waste no time to go. ~ Will Advise

Schools, the institutions traditionally called upon to correct social inequality, are unsuited to the task; without economic opportunity to follow educational opportunity, the myth of equality can never become real. Far more than a hollow promise of future opportunity for their children, parents need jobs, income, and services. And children whose backgrounds have stunted their sense of the future need to be taught by example that they are good for more than they dared dream. ~ Kenneth Keniston

I believe that we all have the potential to love any human being, and that just love who you wish and celebrate it the best you can. ~ Kathy Najimy

Your LinkedIn profile must include keywords for specific skills that match your desired job. ~ Melanie Pinola

I'm one of those introverts with well-honed social skills, and I have even danced on the occasional table, but I have felt sheer panic when my exhaustion precedes my exit. It's like the Cinderella story with a twist: I want to get out of there and into my duds before midnight - or ten, or eight. ~ Laurie A. Helgoe

As the brilliant sunset cools to gray, I vow my anger over blatant discrimination will not cool. As these rocks stay steady through season changes and time, so I will remain steady. I will not be silent. I will not let this go. ~ Stephanie Morrill

What Makes Up Resilience? If you look at the current research, here are five of the most common factors of resilient people: They are resourceful and have good problem-solving skills. They are more likely to seek help. They hold the belief that they can do something that will help them to manage their feelings and to cope. They have social support available to them. They are connected with others, such as family or friends.2 ~ Brene Brown

Well, first let me say that I think health care reform is important. It has to be a priority. And our system is broken. The Finance Committee bill is the best effort yet, due in large measure to the efforts of my colleague, Olympia Snowe, but it's not there yet. It falls short. ~ Susan Collins

Internal democracy in schools is as important in order to ensure the true democratization of education. ~ Sharad Vivek Sagar

Separation is itself an integral part of the unity of this world, of a global social practice split into reality and image. The social practice confronted by an autonomous spectacle is at the same time the real totality which contains that spectacle. But the split within this totality mutilates it to the point that the spectacle seems to be its goal. ~ Guy Debord

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual. ~ Nelson Mandela

What excites me about America is its social mobility, people continually rising from the bottom to the top and altering the culture in the process. On another level, however, we remain a nation that lives in social ghettos. Celebrities generally congregate around other celebrities; academics and intellectuals are cloistered in their worlds; people like to associate with those of their kind. If we leave these narrow worlds, it is usually as an observer of another way of life. ~ Robert Greene

It's hurtful somehow to admit this thing and anyway that doesn't mean i'm losing my faith in this beautiful world. But these days now is the time where people have become so much more-excuse me-shallow. When all of the fancy things and outer beauty are demanded, and those who are lost enough to chase and manage to get those things, they will happen to get very nice response from social and able to expand their images and get famous and be seen as someone who has value. Meanwhile those who could see deeper and their souls are insecure of this mad world, they will have smaller space in width but they will dig deeper and deeper into their self, making space in height, finding the true meaning of their souls, the true essential unshakable truth that's beyond the fragile material worldly things. ~ Reza Rusandi

My advice for achieving success is to make a career choice that reflects your passion. Then work your craft a little bit each day-even if someone's not paying you to do It. Try to balance your social life with your educational (or professional) life, and have patience. ~ Giancarlo Esposito

Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play a very crucial role in modern society, for a simple reason: in a democracy, the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions, and in order to overcome this contradiction it is vital to make sure that social inequalities derive from rational and universal principles rather than arbitrary contingencies. Inequalities must therefore be just and useful to all, at least in the realm of discourse and as far as possible in reality as well. ~ Thomas Piketty

Human's intrinsic nature manifest in it's misunderstandings ~ Sigmund Freud

Well, when it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I think we should worry about Social Security first and then tax cuts second. ~ Bobby Scott