Progressive Quotes

“The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, 'All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.”
― Frank Zappa

“Socialism needs to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests, Liberalism would preserve [them] ... by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the preeminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks ... to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capitalism; Liberalism attacks monopoly.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, New Nationalism Speech by Teddy Roosevelt

“...bars can't build better men and misery can only break what goodness remains.”
― Stuart Turton, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

“These are lines from my asteroid-impact novel, Regolith:
Just because there are no laws against stupidity doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be punished.
I haven’t faced rejection this brutal since I was single.
He smelled trouble like a fart in the shower.
If this was a kiss of gratitude, then she must have been very grateful.
Not since Bush and Cheney have so few spent so much so fast for so long for so little.
As a nympho for mind-fucks, Lisa took to politics like a pig to mud.
She began paying men compliments as if she expected a receipt.
Like the Aerosmith song, his get-up-and-go just got-up-and-went.
“You couldn’t beat the crap out of a dirty diaper!”
He embraced his only daughter as if she was deploying to Iraq.
She was hotter than a Class 4 solar flare!
If sex was a weapon, then Monique possessed WMD
I haven’t felt this alive since I lost my virginity.
He once read that 95% of women fake organism, and the rest are gay.
Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but ugly is universal.
Why do wives fart, but not girlfriends?
Adultery is sex that is wrong, but not necessarily bad.
The dinosaurs stayed drugged out, drooling like Jonas Brothers fans.
Silence filled the room like tear gas.
The told him a fraction of the truth and hoped it would take just a fraction of the time.
Happiness is the best cosmetic,
He was a whale of a catch, and there were a lot of fish in the sea eager to nibble on his bait.
Cheap hookers are less buck for the bang,
Men cannot fall in love with women they don’t find attractive, and women cannot fall in love with men they do not respect.
During sex, men want feedback while women expect mind-reading.
Cooper looked like a cow about to be tipped over.
His father warned him to never do anything he couldn’t justify on Oprah.
The poor are not free -- they’re just not enslaved. Only those with money are free.
Sperm wasn’t something he would choose on a menu, but it still tasted better than asparagus.
The crater looked alive, like Godzilla was about to leap out and mess up Tokyo.
Bush follows the Bible until it gets to Jesus.
When Bush talks to God, it’s prayer; when God talks to Bush, it’s policy.
Cheney called the new Miss America a traitor – apparently she wished for world peace.
Cheney was so unpopular that Bush almost replaced him when running for re-election, changing his campaign slogan to, ‘Ain’t Got Dick.’
Bush fought a war on poverty – and the poor lost.
Bush thinks we should strengthen the dollar by making it two-ply.
Hurricane Katrina got rid of so many Democratic voters that Republicans have started calling her Kathleen Harris.
America and Iraq fought a war and Iran won.
Bush hasn’t choked this much since his last pretzel.
Some wars are unpopular; the rest are victorious.
So many conservatives hate the GOP that they are thinking of changing their name to the Dixie Chicks.
If Saddam had any WMD, he would have used them when we invaded. If Bush had any brains, he would have used them when we invaded.
It’s hard for Bush to win hearts and minds since he has neither.
In Iraq, you are a coward if you leave and a fool if you stay.
Bush believes it’s not a sin to kill Muslims since they are going to Hell anyway. And, with Bush’s help, soon.
In Iraq, those who make their constitution subservient to their religion are called Muslims. In America they’re called Republicans.
With great power comes great responsibility – unless you’re Republican.”
― Brent Reilly

“Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.”
― George Soros

“If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for not being a progressive.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those with power can use clever, psychological tricks and play upon our weaknesses and brokenness in order to attract us to their way of thinking. We can be manipulated into illusion.”
― Jean Vanier, Finding Peace

“It does strange things to you to realize that the conservative establishment is forcing you to be a progressive liberal fighter for universal rights.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Perfect State

“That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)”
― Thomas Jefferson

“We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress…. The people are demoralized; The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished…. The fruits of the toil of millions are badly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.”
― Ignatius Donnelly

“We should change the name of AR-15s to 'Marco Rubio' because they are so easy to buy”
― sarah chadwick

“A major assumption that underlies this selection is that it is only within work that is progressive, experimental or avant-garde that staid, old-fashioned images and ideas about gender can be challenged and alternatives imagined. I have never seen a ballet performance that has not disappointed me.”
― Ramsay Burt, The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle and Sexuality

“Oligarchies, throughout past history, have always thought more of their own advantage than of that of the rest of the community. It would be foolish to be morally indignant with them on this account; human nature, in the main and in the mass, is egoistic, and in most circumstances a fair dose of egoism is necessary for survival. It was revolt against the selfishness of past political oligarchies that produced the Liberal movement in favour of democracy, and it was revolt against economic oligarchies that produced Socialism. But although everybody who was in any degree progressive recognised the evils of oligarchy throughout the past history of mankind, many progressives were taken in by an argument for a new kind of oligarchy. ‘We, the progressives’ — so runs the argument — ‘are the wise and good; we know what reforms the world needs; if we have power, we shall create a paradise.’ And so, narcissistically hypnotised by contemplation of their own wisdom and goodness, they proceeded to create a new tyranny, more drastic than any previously known.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society

“From the will of a freedom-fighter, Farzad Kamangar:
"Is it possible to be a teacher and not show the path to the sea to the little fish of the country?
Is it possible to carry the heavy burden of being a teacher and be responsible for spreading the seeds of knowledge and still be silent? Is it possible to see the lumps in the throats of the students and witness their thin and malnourished faces and keep quiet? …
I cannot imagine witnessing the pain and poverty of the people of this land and fail to give our hearts to the river and the sea, to the roar and the flood.”
― Samad Beh-Rang

“....though he hated to admit it, they were all Anglophiles. They were a family of Anglophiles. Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints had been swept away. He explained to them that history was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestors whispering inside.

"To understand history," Chacko said, "we have to go inside and listen to what they're saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells."...

..."But we can't go in," Chacko explained, "because we've been locked out. And when we look in through the windows, all we see are shadows. And when we try and listen, all we hear is a whispering. And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by war. A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.”
― Arundhati Roy

“Humans are antifragile; exposure to discomfort and uncertainty -physical, emotional and intellectual- is necessary.”
― Heather E. Heying, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life

“You should know by now that I'm not a fan of doing things just because that's the way they've always been done.' Preston set his jaw. 'Or preserving things just because they've always been preserved.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“The real-world experiments of comparing socialist-communist countries and capitalist ones have been repeated on countless occasions, and the data could not be any clearer that socialist-communist societies produce poverty and misery and capitalist societies produce prosperity and happiness.”
― Gad Saad, The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life

“Not surprisingly, historically speaking, dictators have always despised the use of humor, precisely because they recognize that their hold over people is ultimately fragile, based on force and lies, and humor undermines their rule.”
― Gad Saad, The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life

“Merlyn, […] was a staunch conservative – which was rather progressive of him, when you reflect that he was living backwards”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“This is an unusual language for academics to write in: to boast that a particular collection of academics and teachers are, in fact, academics "with an activist dimension." And as for the admission that CRT seeks not just to understand society but to "transform it"? This is the language of revolutionary politics, not a language traditionally used in academia. But revolutionary activists were exactly those involved in GRT turned out to be.”
― Douglas Murray, The War on the West

“Race is now an issue in all Western countries in a way it has not been for decades. In the place of color blindness, we have been pushed into racial ultra-awareness. A deeply warped picture has now been painted.”
― Douglas Murray, The War on the West

“Like all societies in history, all Western nations have racism in their histories. But that is not the only history of our countries. Racism is not the sole lens through which our societies can be understood, and yet it is increasingly the only lens used. Everything in the past is seen as racist, and so everything in the past is tainted.”
― Douglas Murray, The War on the West

“Being opposed to progress has always been the wrong side of history.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Inside The Mind of an Introvert

“Although I’m what is called a progressive, it isn’t out of dislike for the past. I don’t reject our yesterdays. I wish that parts of our dead past were more alive. If I’m capable of originality, it’s not because I want to knock down idols or be ahead of the times. If there’s anything rigid about me, it’s a distaste for being in vogue. I would much rather be thought old-fashioned than “with it.” But in general, I still belong to the liberal leftist world as it exists in the West. I vote that way and stand with those people. We may disagree on one issue or another, but that is where I belong.”
― Orson Welles

“Humans thrive -in every way: economically and in their pursuit of happiness- when given the freedom to instantiate their individuality. This is precisely why East Germany had walls meant to stop its citizens from fleeing to the West. Too many East Germans knew that if they could escape from the -utopian egalitarianism- of communism, they would flourish and be happy in the capitalist West. It is the same reason that for more than six decades Cubans have risked shark-infested waters to seek freedom and happiness on the shores of the United States. Political and economic systems that are antithetical to human nature inevitably produce unhappiness.”
― Gad Saad, The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life

“Truth is anti-fragile. It is not brittle. It does not shatter into a million pieces because of an -offensive and hurtful- joke. An individual with a strong personhood can laugh at others (in a playful manner) and laugh at himself. Humor is a test of anti-fragility and non-brittleness in a person and in a society. A society that can’t laugh at others and at itself in a good-humored way is on its way out.”
― Gad Saad, The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life

“Life dealt you a hand of cards. And once life dealt the cards it called the game, collected the remaining cards, left the room, and prayed that you would be wise enough to understand that it’s not about the hand you were dealt. Rather, it’s about how you play it.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“We look for roots in dead men's custom, while we should be looking among the living.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission