William Cobbett Quotes

I am totally in favour of reform - but it must be reform that changes the nature of British politics, not simply the makeup or operation of parliament.

The Seanad question was one element of a process of change and reform to politics that government has been pursuing.

Now is the time to alter our government. Now is the time to stop the movement toward oligarchy. Now is the time to create a government which represents all Americans and not just the 1%... No more excuses. We must all become involved in the political process.

The reform of government needs to continue.

I ran for president in order to be able to try to change Washington D.C. from the inside. Our federal government is broken.

We must restore faith in politics. Reform of the House of Lords is only one part of the answer, but it is a vital one.

Canadians understand that our Senate, as it stands today, must either change or … vanish

I want to be at least part of the change in Congress.

When we have a majority we will do it. I think the days of the Lords are quite genuinely numbered.

The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose it unless fundamental political changes occur.

The voters in District 8 shared our vision that Washington is broken, and we're going to go up there and fix it.

Are we going to just change the personalities in the speakership? Or are we going to fundamentally transform the way we do business here in Washington, D.C.?

It is given to Bristol in this election to wrench the parliamentary system away from its feudal origins, and pitchfork it kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.

We need citizens willing to make Congress accountable for the travesty which passes for government today.

We keep looking at democratization as an event—like the fall of the Berlin Wall—but it’s actually a process.

He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted ... must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones.

A revolution has taken place within the government but it has not yet penetrated civil society.

It is essential to the freedom and security of a free people, that no taxes be imposed upon them but by their own consent, or their representatives.

I continue faithful to the measure of Parliamentary reform brought forward by Mr. Pitt. I am firmly persuaded that at present a prodigious majority of the people of this country are adverse to the measure. In my view, so far from being an objection to the discussion, this is rather a recommendation.

To reform Congress, you have to get Congress to play along.

Real freedom will require many changes in the nation’s political and social philosophies and institutions.

The period of radical reform is finished.

We need to reform the political system, or we'll lose the democracy. I don't think it's that hard. It doesn't take rocket science. We've done it before successfully at the presidential level and tried it several places at the state level.

Leaders at the highest levels of our government are undertaking a deliberate and systematic effort to redefine our government, our economy and our country.

How do we get more politicians to move from 'fixing' the system to reforming the system? The obvious answer is to either improve the quality of public services or reduce the public's dependence on them. Both approaches are necessary.