Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.

 

Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.
--
Michael, Act I

 

Oscar Wilde

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Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago, independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the interests of itself and interests of its people — of its citizens. This is our final choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to have before. And the guarantee for this is the choice of the Russian people, themselves. No, guarantees from outside cannot be provided. This is impossible. It would be impossible for Russia today. Any kind of turn towards totalitarianism for Russia would be impossible, due to the condition of the Russian society.

 

Vladimir Putin

 

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

 

Himmler hated the church. He and Bormann were the two people who influenced Hitler most. When I spoke to Hitler in the beginning he agreed with me and said that no state could be governed without religion. In Mein Kampf he said that a man was a fool if he destroyed the religion of the people. Hitler also made the statement that the political reform should not be a religious reform.

 

Franz von Papen

 

Reform is a word you always ought to watch out for. Like, when Mao started the Cultural Revolution it wasn't called a reform. Reform is a change that you're supposed to like. So as soon as you hear the word reform you can reach for your wallet and see who's lifting it. [...] Subsidy is another interesting word, kind of like reform. It's a subsidy if public funds are used for public purposes. That's called a subsidy. It's not called a subsidy when it goes to private wealth. That's reform or something.

 

Noam Chomsky

 

Progress is a possibility for the animal: it can be broken in, tamed and trained; but it is not a possibility for the fool, because the fool thinks he has nothing to learn. It is his place to dictate to others and put them right, and so it is impossible to reason with him. He will laugh you to scorn in saying that what he does not understand is not a meaningful proposition. 'Why don't I understand it, then?', he asks you, with marvellous impudence. To tell him it is because he is a fool would only be taken as an insult, so there is nothing you can say in reply. Everybody else sees it quite clearly, but he will never realize it.

Here then, at the outset, is a potent secret which is inaccessible to the majority of people; a secret which they will never guess and which it would be useless to tell them: the secret of their own stupidity.

 

Eliphas Levi