A “communist/socialist/progressive” is an oxymoron, like an “atheist/evangelical Christian/Muslim.”
Hendrik Hertzberg (b. 1943) American journalist, editor, speech writer, political commentator
“Ask the Author Live: Hendrik Hertzberg on George Soros,” The New Yorker (19 Nov 2010)
(Source)
Quotations about:
progressive
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Man’s urge for change and his need for stability have always balanced and checked each other, and our current vocabulary, which distinguishes between two factions, the progressives and the conservatives, indicates a state of affairs in which this balance has been thrown out of order. No civilization — the man-made artifact to house successive generations — would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
“On Violence,” Crises of the Republic (1972)
(Source)
Any reasonable system of taxation should be based on the slogan of “Soak the Rich.”
Heywood Broun (1888-1939) American journalist, author
(Attributed)
When people ask, “Why should the rich pay a larger percent of their income than middle-income people?” — my answer is not an answer most people get: It’s because their power developed from laws that enriched them.
Ralph Nader (b. 1934) American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist
“Public Citizen Number One,” by Debra Saunders, San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle (13 Oct 1996)
Things are not getting worse; things have always been this bad. Nothing is more consoling than the long perspective of history. It will perk you up no end to go back and read the works of progressives past. You will learn therein that things back then were also terrible, and what’s more, they were always getting worse. This is most inspiriting.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
The Progressive (Mar 1986)
(Source)
At the bottom of every social problem we will find a social wrong.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Social Problems, ch. 1 (1883)
Listen, here’s the thing about politics: It’s not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this.
Tony Kushner (b. 1956) American playwright and screenwriter
Interview with Ben Greenman, “Tony Kushner, Radical Pragmatist,” Mother Jones (Nov/Dec 2003)
(Source)
Conservatism stands on man’s incontestable limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitiude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Conservative,” lecture, Boston (1841-12-09)
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.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1898 [ed. Paine (1935)]
