Social Reform Quotes

“The greatest meditation is revolution for assimilation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work

“A homeless guy lifts a bread out of hunger, it's called burglary, but a cool-looking guy rips off an entire population, while spreading disparities wider than ever, it's called entrepreneurship. What a world! What a pathetic world!”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“It is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that every man will attain to the fullness of his worth, to all the dignity of his being, and that mankind will accomplish with order and with calmness...the progress ordained for it.”
― Frederick Bastiat, The Law

“When wholeness is now and here, reform is everywhere. When oneness is now and here, uplift is everywhere. When the human is now and here, humanity is everywhere.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather

“Transparency is the better part of reform.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather

“There's more to life than left and right, there's more to life than red and blue, there's more to life than east and west, there's more to life than facts and fluke.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather

“Every responsible civilian is a reformist, whereas every apathetic civilian is a terrorist,”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather

“Civilization is a process, not a place.”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“Reform is just another name for responsibility.”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“Not all con-artists are billionaires, but every billionaire is a con-artist.”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“Equality begins in the mind. If in our own mind we have a pedestal for the billionaire and royalty, and no place for the janitor and the bartender, then even a thousand policy reforms won't be able to equalize such a cockeyed, internally broken society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“Your footsteps will strike terror in terrorists,
Your voice will give chills to the divisionists.
Turn your existence into a beacon of help,
Possess this world with acts of love and uplift.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather

“In a world of animals one who is human has more haters than admirers.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Find A Cause Outside Yourself: Sermon of Sustainability

“Life and death are civilian affair.
A reformer works each day with coffin in pocket.
There'll be no life for any of the civilians,
If the reformer slips into drunken enjoyment.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“Amantes Assemble Sonnet 82

I am a soldier, I am a reformer.
What will I do with a long life!
If you wanna bless me with something,
Bless me, O Nature, with courage to die with smile.
Life and death are civilian affair.
A reformer works each day with coffin in pocket.
There'll be no life for any of the civilians,
If the reformer slips into drunken enjoyment.
A reformer doesn't know what is a hangover,
Because a reformer is never sober.
Drunkenness of booze wears off in a day,
Drunkenness of sacrifice lasts through millennia.
The selfish drink to seek escape.
The reformer is too free to need such cheap help.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“If life had rejected mutation 3 billion years ago, we'd still be crawling around as single cell organism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“Reform the politicians, you ensure reform in society for a few decades. Reform the citizens, you ensure reform in society for centuries.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament

“Everybody is a terrorist, till you see the reformist.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament

“Actual lasting change is independent of law and policy. Change reliant on policy has a very short life-expectancy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence

“I hate guns and grenades,
Backbone is superior to all weaponry.
Reformer's CSF contains enough C4,
To blow up Alpha Centauri.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence

“Yes I am broken, I am broken to my last atom. You know why? Because the entire world is on my shoulders - because humankind is my responsibility. You call it God complex, I call it humanity - you call it masochism, I call it humanity - you call it insanity, I call it humanity. Be broken to pieces for the world, and you shall develop the insight into how all the pieces fit together. Destroy all internal order for the uplift of others, and your mind will wake up to the order of wholeness. Remember, there is no creation without a broken atom, there is no civilization without a broken human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo

“Break the chains,
Take off the blinkers.
The whole world awaits,
For it needs to be tinkered.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“Heroes of culture are often branded as enemy of the state.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“Drunkenness of alcohol ruins life,
Drunkenness of scripture ruins society.
Drunkenness of ideology ruins the world,
Drunkenness of nationality ruins humanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Our health, our intellect, our resources - if all these only benefit us and do nothing for the people around us, then what's the point of it all!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism

“Some want to turn the clock back, harkening back to some golden age of nostalgia, when women, children, the lower class, parishioners, and people of other races and creeds knew their place; not back to the 1950s, but further back: to Dickensian times and to (corporate) feudal fiefdom. They want to wind the clock back to a time before the hard-won battles for civil rights, social reforms, and worker representation. A time long, long before the “woke virus”, “illegal immigrants”, and gender identity, when life was more conservative and white lives mattered; though with a new, fundamentalist, Christian nationalist (or Islamist, or ultra-Zionist, or even atheist) and isolationist twist. And some will go to any lengths – and I do mean any desperate, violent, draconian lengths – to bring this vile and unholy vision about. [From Preface]”
― H.M. Forester, Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt: A crash course in Psi-fi, Romantic idealism, depth psychology, the daemonic, and Resistance

“Forgiveness has been and will continue to be used as a weapon against oppressed trauma survivors in order to maintain social inequalities, which cause further trauma.”
― Amanda Ann Gregory, You Don't Need to Forgive: Trauma Recovery on Your Own Terms

“Love, for Gandhi, was a potent instrument for social and collective transformation. It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking for so many months. The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social-contracts theory of Hobbes, the “back to nature” optimism of Rousseau, the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

“My study of Gandhi convinced me that true pacifism is not nonresistance to evil, but nonviolent resistance to evil. Between the two positions, there is a world of difference. Gandhi resisted evil with as much vigor and power as the violent resister, but he resisted with love instead of hate. True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power, as [Reinhold] Niebuhr contends. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

“A further effort that the church can make in attempting to solve the race problem is to take the lead in social reform. It is not enough for the church to be active in the realm of ideas; it must move out into the arena of social action.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story