Agnes Repplier Quotes

The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.

Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.

Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all along.

Progress is never accepted by everybody.

It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

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

Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.

Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear.

Reforms are less to be dreaded than revolutions, for they cause less reaction.

Each of us have to decide whether we’re going to be a force for progress or an obstacle to progress.

Man is by nature a conservative animal and government is his instrument for preventing rapid change.

… evolution over revolution.

All political action aims at either preservation or change.

Custom is petrification; nothing but dynamite can dislodge it for a century.

America is a conservative country with a small “c” - they want change, but they don’t want too much change too fast.

Certainly none of the advances made in civilization has been due to counterrevolutionaries and advocates of the status quo.

Inertia is as powerful a force in society and politics as it is on physics, and effecting change can be demanding and discouraging.

Most want progress but hardly anybody wants change. Change is almost always a little traumatic.

Conservatives want to keep things as they are, while revolutionists turn things upside down.

The way I look at the world is establishment versus change agents. The establishment is those people who want to keep things the way they are. Change agents are people like me.

The conservative may clamor against reform, but he might as well clamor against the centrifugal force. He sighs for the "good old times,"--he might as well wish the oak back into the acorn.

No, everything is not going to be okay. It never is. It isn't okay now. Change, by definition, changes things

We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia and the irksomeness of action.

It has always been like that with changes. In 1913, we established divorce as a right for women in Uruguay. You know what they were saying back then? That families would dissolve. That it was the end of good manners and society. There has always been a conservative and traditional opinion out there that's afraid of change. When I was young and would go dancing at balls, we'd have to wear suits and ties. Otherwise they wouldn't let us in. I don't think anyone dresses up for dancing parties nowadays.