Rutger Bregman Quotes

I didn't run for mayor to be the caretaker of the status quo.

The American people... want change. They want big ideas, big reform.

The principle issue in this election is whether or not you are prepared to do anything new.

We Republicans came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.

Brothers and sisters: Now is not the time for thinking small, now is not the time for the same-old, same-old establishment politics and stale inside-the-Beltway ideas.

I think we want to see new voices and new ideas emerge - that's part of the reason why term limits are a really useful thing.

I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

I don't think you can work on feelings in politics, apart from anything else, political change can come very unexpectedly, sometimes overnight when you least expect it.

I knew if I waited long enough, the Republican Party would rock.

In pursuing reform, we have to navigate uncharted waters. We may also have to confront protracted problems because we will have to shake up vested interests.

Events in America show the extent to which democracy there is fuelled by populism - Barack Obama's victory is a manifestation not of Washington's need for change, but of America's. That is not how democracy works in England.

We need someone to turn things around in America.

A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before.

You don't choose a party because it's the flavour of the month. I feel I will be able to work under a political system. I feel if people like me don't enter politics to bring change, who will?

Politics swings like a pendulum.

Four years is a long time in politics.

Politics is repetition. It is not change. Change is something beyond what we call politics. Change is the essence politics is supposed to be the means to bring into being.

I spent 10 years fighting for reform in Cook County, and I didn't change my DNA when I got to Washington.

For politics to change … culture must change too --- and that takes much more than dispatching troops, holding elections, and writing constitutions.

It [is] natural that in the vibration of the political pendulum, it should go from one extreme to another.

There’s something deeply cultural about changing parties …. radio announcers and journalists can change either newspaper or radio or television stations and footballers can change teams, but there seems to be a deeper cultural thing about the notion of [political] defection, even if you haven’t changed your values along the way.

Political theories, once adopted, do not disappear so easily.

Nothing is so common as to see a political upheaval pass practically unnoticed merely because the names of the leaders and their parties remain the same.

It is the necessary nature of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great change.

All political action aims at either preservation or change.