Robert Reich Quotes

The way even movements change is stunning: Chinese communist capitalists? Evangelicals deciding to be nice to gay people?

As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it's a question of living one's life in a drastically different way.

National events determine our ideals, as much as our ideals determine national events.

There were moments where people took the to streets and small rebellions, but ultimately it's a change in consciousness - so how do you capture that and bring the piece to light?

I think that once somebody sees something, or feels it in the consciousness of society, it starts to allow change for other people.

I believe you should tell the story of injustices, of inequalities, of bad conditions, so that the people as a whole in this country really face the problems that people who are pushed to the point of striking know all about, but others know practically nothing about.

I'm no longer interested in making political films. There's something old-fashioned about them. Young people now don't care for politics. It isn't present in life as it used to be. And increasingly I like films which reflect present-day reality.

Between the approximation of the idea and the precision of reality there was a small gap of the unimaginable, and it was this hiatus that gave him no rest.

How is it possible that in just the last ten years all of these things which were taboo throughout our culture, throughout the culture, things that were taboo are now not only normal but celebrated, and people who were not really supportive of them are called kooks and the new weirdos?

When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness -- it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum.

It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.

I think people look at revolution too much in terms of power. I think revolution has to be seen more anthropologically, in terms of transitions from one mode of life to another.

If you're outraged at conditions, then you can't possibly be free or happy until you devote all your time to changing them and do nothing but that. But you can't change anything if you want to hold onto a good job, a good way of life and avoid sacrifice.

Lasting social change unfolds from inside out: from the inner to the outer being, from inner to outer realities.

The point is change can come about, but it only comes about when millions of people are actively involved in political struggle, the billionaires may have the money, but we have the people.

I titled my book "Revolution." And that is exactly what it is. France is experiencing a time of transformation - in education, on the labor market and in the pensions system. We're talking about a cultural revolution.

Every revolution begins as consciousness because some group of people has to imagine change. You have to have the idea of change or at least have a hope before you can proceed. And that stage goes very quickly because a contagion of consciousness is within your control. But when you get to the stage of institutional change, it becomes a much slower process.

Social change cannot come above the intellect, it comes about by people suffering. And the more people are related to that, the more they lose respect for an existing government. They will seek another direction. If there are too many people who seek a new direction, then the existing government calls upon the army and police to manage society – that is called fascism.

If my goal is to change Colombia, which it is because I really think Columbia has to change in many, many ways - I think it has to be a very profound, nearly spiritual maturing process in the Colombian society because I think you have to first be aware of what's happening and it's not easy because many people don't want to see what's happening.

All times are changing times, but ours is one of massive, rapid moral and mental transformation. Archetypes turn into millstones, large simplicities get complicated, chaos becomes elegant, and what everybody knows is true turns out to be what some people used to think.

Why would anything change that has not been changed since the existence of cinema? [James] Baldwin somehow wakes you up to reality. It takes you out of the dream - or out of the nightmare.

Sociologically, large groups of people don't generally have massive changes in their belief instantaneously.

No religion will ever make me forget the condition of our people in this country...No God, no religion, no nothing will make me forget it until it stops, until it's elimitnated. I want to make that point clear.

It's not a revolution if nobody loses