Mary Heaton Vorse Quotes

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

Stronger than all the armies is the idea whose time has come. The time has come for equality in sharing in government and education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here.

An idea consisting of a social crime in one age becomes the very religion of humanity in the next

America's problem is how to free itself from the grip of its exhausted ideas.

Nelson Mandela understood that social transformation and economic transformation go hand in hand.

I am unapologetic about the need for social change, greater inclusion, and equity.

We want to challenge the established ideas with new ideas.

Society never progresses because the majority one day wakes up and says, “Let’s do things differently.” The majority didn’t wake up and say, “Oh, let’s just free the slaves.” ... Society always progressed because a relatively small group of people — usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their time — had a better idea and articulated another way. That’s simply how evolution works; it’s the mutation — the member of the species who does things differently - that points the way to the future because they’re better adapted for survival.

The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget old ideas.

Progress of any kind is always at variance with the old and established ideas and therefore with the codes inspired by them. Every step of progress is a change involving heavy risks.

In order to change the system, we need to change our ideas.

And I think women have come a very, very long way, but they have a long way to go.

We're not going back anywhere, we're going forward, we're going forward in democracy, we're going forward in participation, we're going forward with ideas.

I like the fact that glass ceilings are breaking all over.

To innovate is not to reform.

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

The necessary transformation of which I speak and of which my presidency will be a part is built on turning creative possibilities into live realities for all our people.

The world needs opportunities for new leaders and new ideas. Kids need opportunities to lead and succeed. Are you ready to make the match? Because the world's problems shouldn't be the human family's heirloom.

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.

Listen, the next revolution is gonna be a revolution of ideas.

Gay marriage will be universally accepted in time. But if I may be so bold as to say to gays and lesbians, don't wait for that time to arrive. Just as my father and his generation did not 'wait' for their civil rights, nor should you. The toothpaste ain't going back in the tube. The tide has turned.

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress.

Mr. Christ, I read you as an infinitely patient entity who, as they say, often works in mysterious ways, a rebel unafraid to take the tougher, less traveled paths. Seems to me you're playing the long game. Is that why more states are coming out in favor of marriage equality? Is that why the Affordable Care Act is now with us?

I'm an agent of change all day long, and I want to meet other people like that.

I think that's a very important part of what we need in this country, is that sense that we have lived through so many stages and that we are entering into a new stage where we could create something completely different.