Bernard Bailyn Quotes

And I think Governor Romney has a shot if the 'R' next to his name doesn't just stand for 'Republican,' it stands for 'reformer.'

If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.

There are reformers in every country.

Changes do occur often with such suddenness in ways not foreseen except by isolated thinkers far removed from the consensus of their day.

Change: In politics, the substitution of one disappointment for another.

Many of you are disillusioned with the performance of this and past governments, and with the unkept promises. But we have to understand that we cannot manage without these reforms.

Political activity means working for the future; the more we look into the future the more far-sighted will our policy be - so much the more clear and decided. The less far we try to see into the future, the more we content ourselves with the daily routine (Alltäglichkeit), the more weak and uncertain will be our policy of to-day. Every politician of note must, therefore endeavor out of the present to conclude what the future will be, and, if he wants to win the masses to his politics then he must attempt to make his expectations of the future plausible

Surely this is a bad beginning in Lane Seminary. If it is to be governed by the excitements of Cincinnati, and especially … excitements so unreasonable, and if the students are to be placed under laws [so as] to appease the mob, the church will have little hope either from its purity or its influence. [When] it is found that it can be governed by city excitements it may expect to be favored with enough of them. Better far for the Seminary and the honest religion, the mob had torn the building to the ground. It could have been reared again as a standing monument of integrity.

I want to make all Europe and America know it – I want to make England feel her weakness if she refuses to give the justice we the Irish require – the restoration of our domestic parliament...

Islam is against slavery, but no sura explicitly forbids it. This shows that it is necessary to come up with a new historical and sociological reading of the scriptures.

We demand the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxy.

Tell the King, that whole cities are in open revolt against the prosecutions, and that it is impossible to enforce the decrees here. As for myself, I shall continue to hold by the Catholic faith; but I will never give any color to the tyrannical claim of kings to dictate to the consciences of their people, and to prescribe the form of religion that they choose to impose. Call the King’s attention to the corruption that has crept into the administration of justice. Let the Government be reformed, the Privy Council and the Council of Finance, and increase the authority of the Council of State.

Had Luther and Calvin been confined before they had begun to dogmatize, the states would have been spared many troubles.

The subject we talk of is the eye of England: if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavor to take them off; he would be a strange oculist, who should pull out the eye.”

You can reform a political culture, but it’s a big lift. First, the voters would have to convince the legislators that they’re being watched by someone other than the lobbyists. Then they’d have to press for laws that would force a change of behavior, like nonpartisan redistricting and ethics reform. Then the voters would have to follow up, year after year, until the old guard was replaced by a whole new generation who went into politics with dreams of drafting serious legislation, rather than just bringing more stuff back into the district or, at worst, shaking down some landlord at the airport for a thousand bucks.

If the forces behind [education] reform seem scattered and weak those defending the status quo—the unions, the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the vendors—are well organized and well financed…. I am convinced that without a major realignment of political forces, we won’t get the dramatic improvements our children need.

There are hugely creative military leaders who have contemplated just the kind of changes that are needed. In Washington, however, strength lies with the opponents rather than the proponents of change. And the opponents possess the ultimate political weapon of mass destruction. They can accuse leaders who want to challenge the status quo of making America weak. So we’re left with all the systems the country has accumulated to counter every post World War II defense challenge: multiple air forces, multiple expeditionary forces; multiple cyber-commands. We can’t afford what we have. We don’t need much of what we have.

There have been waves of reform in the past. I see no reason why they wouldn't happen again.

It is just as impossible to help reform by conciliating prejudice as it is by buying votes. Prejudice is the enemy. Whoever is not for you is against you.

The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.

Community life is not easy for somebody like me, who is used to living by himself and doing what he wants. It's a demanding life, and you quickly get in touch with your own handicaps and weaknesses.

At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it.

When you're on a boat, 15 nautical miles off the coast and you're with a bunch of fishermen, they don't give two shits about who you are.

The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.

I love reform better than its modes.