Parker Palmer Quotes

Constant, patient reform—the only kind of reform compatible with Democratic stability—is unsatisfying.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

Support for peaceful reform by the people themselves is the right way to promote democracy, not the use of force.

We know a way now to make use of democracy, and we know how to change the attitude of people towards government, but yet the majority of people are without vision. We who have prevision must lead them and guide them into the right way if we want to escape the confusions of Western democracy and not follow in the tracks of the West.

If the ballot doesn't work, we'll try something else. But let us try the ballot.

Political struggle is the most important thing any of us can do as a citizen in a democracy; and that means the old joining the young to fight for elemental kinds of justice.

I ran because I became convinced after King was shot and killed, and Martin Luther King was one of the great heroes of my life, that politics is not perfect but it's the best available nonviolent means of changing how we live. If we don't like how we live, we can participate in the perfect most revolutionary act in a democracy, it's called voting.

The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence, and patience to turn that dream into reality.

The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.

It's much harder to bring about socialism through legal means, because there are so many possibilities for opposition.

While the broad principles of democracy are universal, the fact remains that their application varies considerably ... We are at the beginning of the road, at the very beginning. We still have a long way to go.

The people are fed up with corruption and embezzlement. They object to censorship. The first thing that the people of Iran want is free elections.

I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to do-a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; ... a Great Social Evil to Discover and to Remedy.

There's an old African proverb that says "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." We have to go far - quickly. And that means we have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing, and why we have to work to solve it.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and the internet is our new Rome

I mean you last as long as lies.

Good travels at a snail's pace. Those who want to do good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time.

We, the people, gave the marching orders to our democratically-elected officials and instructed them. We wanted out of Vietnam and we got out of Vietnam. We wanted women's right to choose and we got women's right to choose. We got the EPA, we got the Clean Air Act, Water Act, we got rights for workers in the workplace to be protected from dangers. We accomplished pretty much all of what we wanted when we had the courage of our convictions. That is the missing ingredient.

There is the world that should be and the world that is. We live in one and must create the other.

We must not forget that all great revolutions and reformations would look mean and meagre if examined in detail as they occurred at the time.

And for those of us who have, you know, looked in sort of the established order of the political fray over the course of the past several years, it looks like chaos. But to the people I think it looks like democracy. And I think that that's something that really is moving us to a new reality, where the parties are going to have to retrofit themselves and adapt to this new realignment.

If a great thing can be done, it can be done easily, but this ease is like the of ease of a tree blossoming after long years of gathering strength.

We must make progress slowly so as to preserve the progress we have already made.

If democracy succeeds in Egypt, other countries will follow. Should the democratic experiment in Egypt be hijacked by the military or anti-democratic Islamist groups, the revolution will fail elsewhere.

The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly--we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone's life.