A Quote by Theodore Roosevelt

The lunatic fringe in all reform movements.

Theodore Roosevelt

Quote Topics

Fringe Lunatic Movements Reform Reform Movements

Quote Author

Theodore Roosevelt
American - President
October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919

Among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements.

Theodore Roosevelt

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

Theodore Roosevelt

You sometimes find something good in the lunatic fringe. In fact, we have got as part of our social and economic government today a whole lot of things which in my boyhood were considered lunatic fringe, and yet they are now part of everyday life.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The lunatic fringe is more like a Spanish shawl, where the fringe makes up the entire garment.

Aldous Huxley

Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

Doris Lessing

We cannot hope to change human nature. There will always be cranks and conspiracy theorists among us. But we can try to improve things - we don't have to accept the debasement of civil discourse or civic decline. We can take steps to ensure that the lunatic fringe remains on the fringe and stops bleeding into the base and then poisoning the mainstream

John Avlon

The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

H. L. Mencken

That was like the moment of revelation for me that in fact we are not the lunatic fringe.

Jill Stein

You can't behave in a calm, rational manner. You've got to be out there on the lunatic fringe.

Jack Welch

There is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement.

Theodore Roosevelt

The way to find what the mainstream will do tomorrow is to associate with the lunatic fringe today.

Jean Louis

Outrageous behavior, also known as the lunatic fringe, is the seed bed of innovation and creativity.

Joel Salatin

People like me, who care about printing, constitute the tiniest lunatic fringe in the nation.

Leonard Baskin

Middle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be beneficiaries of reform.

Barbara Ehrenreich

One of the things about leadership is that you cannot be a moderate, balanced, thoughtful, careful articulator of policy. You've got to be on the lunatic fringe.

Jack Welch

Our family was on the lunatic fringe. My mother was always completely irrepressible. My father made crowd noises into a microphone.