Quotes About Reforming

#1. There's a difference between what I would like to have been and what I would have been. I always fantasized about being a reforming judge or prison governor (I think that the UK penal system is a disgrace) - but it's fantasy.

Mary Beard

#2. We humans are really good at forming groups to compete, and then dissolving the groups and reforming them along different lines to compete in a different way.

Jonathan Haidt

#3. Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

#4. If anything ail a man," says Thoreau, "so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even ... he forthwith sets about reforming - the world."3

Eric Hoffer

#5. If I know I'm going to be in a little different system, I'm 39, I can plan for that; we can plan for that. Doing nothing, the status quo, is going to guarantee cuts for current seniors ... reforming the system is the only way you shore it up.

Sean Duffy

#6. Many still believe that conducting political and economic reforms at the same time is not an Asian way. But this is a fairy-tale. We broke that old stereotype by reforming our political, economic and social systems concurrently since 1990.

Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj

#7. Reforming the way the state works with businesses and providing incentives for employers will help preserve and create new jobs in Massachusetts.

Mitt Romney

#8. Now, we are seeing many of these same companies face the truth about their financial standing. Congress is faced with the challenge of reforming our accounting industry and holding corporate executives responsible for their actions.

Bennie Thompson

#9. Never can a reforming sect survive if it is only reforming; the formative elements alone - the real impulse, that is, the principles - live on and on.

Swami Vivekananda

#10. Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

Mark Twain

#11. Moreover, from reforming the tax code to our immigration system, to commonsense legal reform, President Bush put America on notice that he will continue fighting to make the country, and the world, a better place for future generations.

Jim Sensenbrenner

#12. I have a proven record, a record of accomplishment, a record of cutting taxes, of shrinking the government, of reforming education, of challenging the status quo, eliminating career civil service protections, shrinking the government workforce by 11 percent, but leading the nation in job growth.

Jeb Bush

#13. There are moments when rather than reforming the human race I'd like to abandon it altogether and go become, say, one of Dr. O'Reilly's macaques, which have to have more sense.

Connie Willis

#14. Each civilization has its own kind of pestilence and can control it only by reforming itself.

Rene Dubos

#15. It seems to be impossible to hold a credible election without reforming the electoral system.

Sheikh Hasina

#16. One great flaw in the reforming passion is that in its eagerness to remedy social wrongs it tends to neglect, certainly to undervalue, the experience of those whose lives it wishes to improve.

Irving Howe

#17. Daniel Dennett is our best current philosopher. He is the next Bertrand Russell. Unlike traditional philosophers, Dan is a student of neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and psychology. He's redefining and reforming the role of the philosopher.

Marvin Minsky

#18. If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even,- for that is the seat of sympathy,-he forthwith sets about reforming the world.

Henry David Thoreau

#19. We are working for a revolution. If we do not start it by improving the life of the soldiers, all slogans of reforming and improving society are but empty words.

Chiang Kai-shek

#20. Power must be used, but it must be tempered by soul-searching and the recognition of our human capacity for error. That is the maxim that should inform our approach to every challenge, from reforming state government to engaging in foreign affairs.

Eliot Spitzer

#21. How do you teach a classroom of Sybils who are breaking apart and reforming right in front of you?

David Brooks

#22. Marriage is not a reform school ... Instead of you reforming [your spouse], [he or she] will instead influence you.

Billy Graham

#23. God is decreeing to begin some newand great period in his Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does he then but reveal Himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his Englishmen?

John Milton

#24. In 2007 the 'dagger' of an idea that killed President Bush's effort at reforming the immigration system was lax border security.

Juan Williams

#25. One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days ... would be to have women architects. The mischief with the houses built to rent is that they are all male contrivances.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

#26. Reforming is about curbing government power. It is a self-imposed revolution; it will require real sacrifice, and it will be painful.

Li Keqiang

#27. The key obstacle to reforming aid is public opinion.. Public opinion drives them into the "I care" photo opportunities that dominate aid.

Paul Collier

#28. By rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.

Paul Krugman

#29. President Obama has a good sense not just of the economic requisites for financial crisis firefighting but also how you build political support for moving forward on reforming the financial system, making sure that the banks are carrying enough capital.

Lael Brainard

#30. When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.

Baron De Montesquieu

#31. The most compelling reason for reforming our system is that the system is in no one's interest. It is a suicide machine.

Ronald Wright

#32. I have always considered myself of the reforming centre-left.

Charles Kennedy

#33. Democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments, but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free governments.

Andrew Jackson

#34. As president, I would promote a Fair and Flat Tax plan, known as the 'EZ Tax.' My tax plan would be the largest tax cut in American history, reforming individual, business, and worker taxes.

Rand Paul

#35. In January 2013, I told the people in the Justice Department after the re-election that I wanted to focus on reforming the federal criminal justice system. I made an announcement in August of that year in San Francisco, when we rolled out the Smart on Crime initiative.

Eric Holder

#36. The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.

Edmund Burke

#37. Erasmus of Rotterdam, a sixteenth-century priest who was committed to reforming the church from within, said, When faith came to be in writings rather than in hearts, contention grew hot and love grew cold. That which is forced cannot be sincere, and that which is not voluntary cannot please Christ.

Shane Claiborne

#38. Reforming Social Security to make it fully funded and independently held, that's compassionate because it allows people to control their own lives; cutting taxes on families and all Americans to let people have more control over their lives.

Grover Norquist

#39. My austerities, fasting and prayers are, I know, of no value if I rely upon them for reforming me. My penance is the prayer of a bleeding heart for forgiveness for sins unwittingly committed.

Mahatma Gandhi

#40. Conservatism has always been about reforming government and solving problems, and that's why the conservative movement should lead on immigration reform.

Marco Rubio

#41. What Democrats haven't focused on are the kind of policies that would promote economic growth - such as making permanent the 2001/2003 tax cuts, opening up federal lands to more energy production, and reforming government to reduce its burden on business.

Bob Beauprez

#42. The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.

Peter Of Alcantara

#43. I believe that reforming our intelligence community is one of the most important things that we can do in order to ensure that our country is in fact safer, stronger and wiser.

Richard Shelby

#44. 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

#45. To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.

Alan Paton

#46. My experience tells me, unfortunately, that so many people ask the question about 'The Smiths' reforming without really caring about the answer. They just really want to ask the question.

Johnny Marr

#47. The most helpless person is the one who is helpless in reforming himself.

Ali Ibn Abi Talib

#48. Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times.

Lawrence W. Reed

#49. For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#50. I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron, and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister.

Michael Gove

#51. Marriage equality - I think that it's a constitutionally guaranteed right. Let's end the drug wars. Let's balance the federal budget, and that means reforming the entitlements - Medicaid, Medicare.

Gary Johnson

#52. Age is reforming our bodies to better roll with the punches!

Sue Thoele

#53. You deserve better than a man who requires reforming.

Lorraine Heath

#54. My dream is remaking and reforming a more sustainable, more livable, delicious future.

Kate Orff

#55. The dynamism and freedom that characterizes the West is the product of Christianity's reforming itself and moving forward culturally. The ascendancy of the West is the story of the difference that Christianity makes, and it's a story we can't let our culture forget.

Charles Colson

#56. The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it.

Diane Wakoski

#57. The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

Benjamin Haydon

#58. It is our homes and families that need reforming in this increasingly materialistic and secular world.

M. Russell Ballard

#59. Things were not as they seemed. The known world was shifting, reforming. Everything he'd taken as a given, a fact, as real and unquestioned, had fallen away. But

Louise Penny

#60. I'm not talking about reforming #Islam..it is to reform the #Muslim minds & the Muslim understandings of the texts.

Tariq Ramadan

#61. The pubic bones (seen on x ray) are now well defined and represent a remarkable rebuilding of bone and halting of the cancer process. The ischium are also reforming and the illi (hip bones) likewise show diminution of bone lysis. No sane, honest physician could call this a "spontaneous remission."

Robert Willner

#62. Ukraine will be reforming its energy sector because we want to integrate into Europe, ... We have conducted all the talks and reached an agreement with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Poland and Georgia.

Viktor Yushchenko

#63. Each one of us, and, indeed, all those who aspire to national leadership must bring their own visions, views and styles to the business of reforming Nigeria, and the search for solutions.

Ibrahim Babangida

#64. Building new roads and bridges creates jobs. Growing our exports creates jobs. Reforming our outdated tax system and our broken immigration system creates jobs.

Barack Obama

#65. Their most notable defect was that they considered work a virtue, even manual labor. They were materialists, conquerors, and they were infused with a messianic enthusiasm for reforming those who did not think as they did; they did not, however, represent an immediate threat to civilization. No

Isabel Allende

#66. Toward the end of his life, [Arnold] Toynby said the Christianity he saw developing was brittle, imperialistic and incapable of reforming itself.

John Shelby Spong

#67. When it comes to reforming MPs' expenses, the answer is simply to keep it simple: show us receipts as they're claimed and, where there are abuses, enforce the law.

Heather Brooke

#68. Trees and bones are constantly reforming themselves along lines of stress. This algorithm has been put into a software program that's now being used to make bridges lightweight, to make building beams lightweight.

Janine Benyus

#69. Republican governors are leading the way in helping the private sector create new jobs, reforming government and getting our economy back on track.

Bob McDonnell

#70. Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.

Alexander Pope

#71. He who reforms himself, has done much toward reforming others; and one reason why the world is not reformed, is, because each would have others make a beginning, and never thinks of himself doing it.

Thomas Adams

#72. Somewhere along the way, Capitalism reduced the idea of justice to mean just "human rights," and the idea of dreaming of equality became blasphemous. We are not fighting to tinker with reforming a system that needs to be replaced.

Arundhati Roy

#73. The compassionate actions of a Buddha are essential to reforming and revitalizing society.

Vinessa Shaw

#74. Not reforming the NHS would have been a much easier decision for me as secretary of state to have taken. We could have just protected the NHS from cuts, put in an extra £12.5bn and left it there. But sooner or later the cracks would have started to show. New treatments would have been held back.

Andrew Lansley

#75. Reforming the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the poor first requires a conversion of mind and heart.

Pope Francis

#76. Reforming public education, cutting property taxes, fixing adult and child protective services and funding our budget can all occur when Democrats and Republicans engage in consensus and cooperation - not cynicism and combat.

Rick Perry

#77. The individual can take initiatives without anybody's permission. Only individuals can think. Only the individual disregards his fears and commits himself exclusively to reforming the human environment.

R. Buckminster Fuller

#78. I have specifically argued that we need to change our relationship with the European Union by fundamentally reforming not just our relationship but the European Union itself.

Michael Gove

#79. When man gives up on reforming and inspiring society he also gives up his freedom.

James Thurber

#80. There are no doubts that, the situation in the country today, indicates that there is much more work to do in the process of reforming the political economy and improving the quality of life of our people and communities.

Ibrahim Babangida

#81. There is no quick fix for illegal immigration. But only when we achieve better control of our borders and better respect for our immigration laws can we give meaning to the discussion we need to have over reforming the numbers, categories, and procedures for legal immigration into the United States.

Jan C. Ting

#82. In The Jack Daniels Sessions, folktales and modern landscapes collide, exploding and reforming in the form of an intriguing and intelligent collection. Cotman seizes the stories of tired tradition and galvanizes them, setting them to dance for us in wonderful, new interpretations.

Cat Rambo

#83. New York Times founder Henry Raymond started his newspaper, "with the goal of reforming government, not belittling it.

Harold Holzer

#84. Here's what I think. I think that a lot of days, for me recently, it's like every split second the whole universe is created and destroyed. It's like constantly collapsing and reforming. And I think a lot of people feel that. I think that love is the answer and that's the only thing that matters.

Andrew VanWyngarden

#85. You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.

Lu Xun

#86. In the year 1915 a series of trivial incidents led some Chinese students in Cornell University to take up the question of reforming the Chinese language.

Hu Shih

#87. He who reforms himself has done more towards reforming the public than a crowd or noisy, impotent patriots.

Johann Kaspar Lavater

#88. You learn something from the classics but your feelings and your imagination operate in the domain of the colloquial. We need to think seriously about reforming the Arabic that we use today.

Hassan Blasim

#89. Such watering pots,' Lord Ragsdale commented as he handed each of them ahandkerchief, then pressed a third to his eye. 'See here, you have set me a bad example.' He grinned at Tim. 'But I will practice economy and cry out of only one eye.

Carla Kelly

#90. Only is a powerful word. It is extreme. It picks a fight. It draws a line in the sand.

Rob Rienow

#91. The real church is comprised of a long list of "formers" who collectively work together for world reform.

Johnnie Dent Jr.