A Quote by Thomas Carlyle

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

Thomas Carlyle

Quote Topics

Men Begins Each Far Foolish Himself Know Man Nation Only Reform Reformation Slower Solid Though Will Wise Wise Man World

Quote Author

Thomas Carlyle
Scottish - Philosopher
December 4, 1795 - February 5, 1881

Every reform means awakening. Once truly awakened, the nation will not be satisfied with reform only in one department of life.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.

Samuel Smiles

So now we are pushing economic reform, bank reform and enterprise reform. So we can finish that reform this year, in September or October. Then our economy may be much more, you know, normalized.

Kim Dae Jung

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.

Albert Camus

We desperately need comprehensive immigration reform in this nation, and yes, comprehensive immigration reform proposals are nuanced and complicated, but you know what shouldn't be? Our capacity to see each other's humanity.

Ayanna Pressley

At twenty a man is full of fight and hope. He wants to reform the world. When he is seventy he still wants to reform the world, but he know he can't.

Rodney Dangerfield

Poland needs reform of the judiciary, but I am a supporter of a wise reform.

Andrzej Duda

All the punishment in the world will not reform a man, unless he knows that he who inflicts it upon him does it for the sake of reformation, and really and truly loves him, and has his good at heart. Punishment inflicted for gratifying the appetite makes man afraid but debases him.

Robert Green Ingersoll

I have a message for the world, which I will deliver without fear and care for the future. To the reformers I will point out that I am a greater reformer than any one of them. They want to reform only little bits. I want root-and-branch reform.

Swami Vivekananda

No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no others counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

Ben Jonson

It is doubtless wise, when a reform is introduced, to try to persuade the British public that it is not a reform at all; but appearances must be kept up to some extent at least.

George Bernard Shaw

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

Thomas Carlyle

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact that they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times.

Lawrence Reed

At twenty a man is full of fight and hope. He wants to reform the world. When he is seventy he still wants to reform the world, but he knows he can't.

Rodney Dangerfield

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.