Rousas John Rushdoony Quotes

People become less inhibited from wanting to change social and economic conditions in a radical fashion according to their own interests, and from being prepared to think of state intervention in ever wider spheres as possible and useful for this purpose.

We have been living amidst one of the great revolutions of human history, and we hardly know it: the penetration of the State into every aspect of human life and society. Some people regard this as good and "progressive," others regard it as tyrannical; but either way, it's a fact, a transformation as great as, say, the Industrial Revolution. Absolutely nothing is now beyond the scope of State power.

I see history as really cyclical in terms of the intense idealism and the desire to create a better life outside of societal norms. In America, possibly because of whatever the American dream is, this happens over and over again. These eras repeat.

We need a new political movement of women and men toward a new society.

Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his.

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

A Day never passes without some ardent reformer or group of reformers suggesting some new government intervention, some new statist scheme to fill some alleged 'need' or relieve some alleged distress.

The uplift of the women, the awakening of the masses must come first, and then only can any real good come about for the country, for India.

As important as it is to change the light bulbs, its more important to change the laws

Apart from letters, it is the vulgar custom of the moment to deride the thinkers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras; yet there has not been, in all history, another agewhen so much sheer mental energy was directed toward creating a fairer social order.

Humanism is not wrong in its cry for sociological healing, but humanism is not producing it.

A lot of people want to change the world, but only a few people want to change themselves. When it comes to the issue of race in America, we have to do both.

Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.

It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations i.e., emancipation of slaves and settlement of the Virginia constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis.

All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.

A different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. Under the name of Anarchy, a new interpretation of the past and present life of society arises, giving at the same time a forecast as regards its future, both conceived in the same spirit as the above-mentioned interpretation in natural sciences. Anarchy, therefore, appears as a constituent part of the new philosophy, and that is why Anarchists come in contact, on so many points, with the greatest thinkers and poets of the present day.

Modifying the core institutions of the society is no small challenge.

It is madness beyond compare To try to reform the world.

Every reform means awakening. Once truly awakened, the nation will not be satisfied with reform only in one department of life.

You have to totally change the way that society's structured in order to being to heal.

It is easy to prescribe improvement for others; it is easy to organize something, to institutionalize this or that, to pass laws, multiply bureaucratic agencies, form pressure groups, start revolutions, change forms of government, tinker at political theory. The fact that these expedients have been tried unsuccessfully in every conceivable combination for 6,000 years has not noticeably impaired a credulous unintelligent willingness to keep on trying them again and again.

Anybody who tries to change society without examining the family is trying to push a shadow without moving a statue.

Just because the laws were changed doesn't mean that the attitudes have changed.

That's in the nature of social change. So you can analyze what didn't work, but it's very hard to predict what will work.