Robert Southey Quotes

Before the Second World War, I believed in the perfectability of social man; that a correct structure of society produced goodwill; and that, therefore, you could remove all social ills by a reorganisation of society. It is possible that I believe something of the same again; but after the war, I did not because I was unable to.

It is madness beyond compare To try to reform the world.

Politics is an instrument that can transform society.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

There are a number of women who have brought about immense change in society.

I don't have any illusions anymore. The illusion that rock 'n' roll could change anything - I don't believe that. I've changed.

The Great Society has arrived and the task of our generation is to bring it under control.

Man is as the Lord made him. But we can change our institutions.

Vain hope to make people happy by politics!

We believe that a society in turmoil cannot be saved through mere legislation.

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

It has taken us centuries of thought and mockery to shake the medieval system. -- With this in view I have taken as impulses, instincts, or needs certain driving forces in the human species as we know it at present, and argued for such social and economic changes as will give them new, free, and varied expression. To take even this first step towards a happy society is a herculean task. After it has been accomplished, generations to come will see what the creature [us] will do next. We none of us know; and we should be thoroughly on our guard against all those who pretend that they do

Hope is a tease designed to prevent us from accepting reality.

Sometimes people invent things because they want to stay alive or feed their children or conquer the village next door. But just as often, new ideas come into the world simply because they're fun. And here's the really strange thing: many of those playful but seemingly frivolous inventions ended up sparking momentous transformations in science, in politics and society.

We need to make sure we're all working together to change mindsets, to change attitudes, and to fight against the bad habits that we have as a society.

Change is inevitable, though," he replied. "As is disappointment. Best to get used to it now.

It generally troubles them [the reformers] not a whit that their remedy implies a complete reconstruction of society, or even a reconstitution of human nature.

Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough?

We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.

Men must be capable of imagining and executing and insisting on social change if they are to reform or even maintain civilization, and capable too of furnishing the rebellion which is sometimes necessary if society is not to perish of immobility.

If you change the society and a culture, the politics will follow.

The saddest illusion of the revolutionary is that revolution itself will transform the nature of human beings.

The world is always childish, and with each new gewgaw of a revolution or new constitution that it finds, thinks it shall never cry any more.

You try to make the world a better place and what does it get you? I mean, Christ, how the hell does one man stand a chance against four billion assholes?

In the next ten years we will have to continue to make changes which will make the whole of this country a genuinely classless society.