Progressive Thought Quotes

We want to have a conversation about what does it mean to be liberal in the 21st century and how do we go about creating that kind of a society.

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

Liberalism... is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet.

'Peace Mom' is my most heartfelt, but I am most proud of 'Myth America' because I nailed the problem and gave the solutions long before the Occupy Movement. I think it's a great organic class analysis.

Tom Paine was a great American visionary. His book, Common Sense, sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in a population of four or five million. That means it was a best seller for years. People were thoughtful then. Hope is one thing. But you need to have hope with thought.

We need our radicals.

This difference between the two parties covers a wide range, and is indicative of the conservative thought of the one and the progressive thought of the other.

One area of liberal phenomenon I support is female bi-sexuality.

Even the alternative weekly newspapers, traditionally a bastion of progressive thought and analysis, have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news.

Apart from letters, it is the vulgar custom of the moment to deride the thinkers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras; yet there has not been, in all history, another agewhen so much sheer mental energy was directed toward creating a fairer social order.

I was told once by a leftwing scholar that as a Marxist, you have to do two things: always be optimistic and always have a view about everything. That advice still sounds good to me.

A critical component of progress is engaging with people you don't agree with - everything else is the status quo.

Malcolm X represents the cutting edge of a kind of critique of globalization in the 21st century. In fact, Malcolm, if anything, was far ahead of the curve in so many ways.

It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it.

Leftist ideas are a part of the very atmosphere which American youth breathes.

Poetry is often generations in advance of the thought of its time.

Dissents speak to a future age.

Liberalism is a series of grievances in addition to everything else that it is.

There was even a recurrent idea in America about an education that would leave out history and the past, that should be a sort of equipment for aerial adventure, weighed down by none of the stowaways of inheritance or tradition.

Reggae has a philosophy, you know? It's not just entertainment. There's an idea behind it, a way of life behind the music, which is a positive way of life, which is a progressive way of life for better people.

Nothing could be less intelligent than to assume, as many respectable persons still manage to do, that the forms of agitation which are popularly summed up in the terms socialism, anarchism, feminism, and pacifism are mere eccentricities of unbalanced minds, seeking to cloak their hatred of restraint and their cowardice under theories of social regeneration.

As the middle begins to feel safe enough to accept some of the so-called radical thinking, ideas move to the middle and a new edge is created.

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next.

The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century.

The making of an Atheist implies a mental stimulation and training which brings into play the primary factors of social progress.