John Jay Chapman Quotes

Reform is a monstrous way of dealing with problems.

Well, changes have been made. The question is whether we've done enough by way of change.

People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this; that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.

There are changes in the works.

The way to promote an idea is to put the word reform at the end of it.

Every single change is fought by those who would be affected by it.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

Only force would produce social change.

Social change can be painful for all involved—oppressor and oppressed.

Change means movement. Movement means friction.

We've got to change the way we do things.

History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.

Nobody is in the process of making any changes that we can be specific about.

Change is never easy.

Change is such hard work.

If they don’t voluntarily change, they will be changed.

Posterity will give a man a fair hearing; his own times will not do so if he is attacking vested interests.

There are people and interests that do not want change. It is not in their interest for this system to change.

It is not much to be wondered at if impatient or disappointed reformers, groaning under the impediments opposed to the most salutary public improvements by the ignorance, the indifference, the intractableness, the perverse obstinacy of a people, and the corrupt combinations of selfish private interests armed with the powerful weapons afforded by free institutions, should at times sigh for a strong hand to bear down all these obstacles, and compel a recalcitrant people to be better governed.

The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them

Reform without pain is impossible.

Reform is a verb …. The process of Reform is an ongoing, dynamic one, not a static process that has reformed and is finished becoming.

Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.

Do the magistrates think of putting down our meeting by acts of violence? I for one think they do, and should we be attacked today, come what will, life, death, or victory, I am determined no house shall cover my head tonight. I am quite ready to stand by the law, and not to give our tyrants the slightest advantage in attacking us in sections; but should they employ force against us. I am repelling attack by attack.