A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
|
Do the days work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but dont be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but dont be a demagogue. Dont hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Dont hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Dont expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Dont hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.
|
An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.
|
One cannot but wonder at this constantly recurring phrase getting something for nothing, as if it were the peculiar and perverse ambition of disturbers of society. Except for our animal outfit, practically all we have is handed us gratis. Can the most complacent reactionary flatter himself that he invented the art of writing or the printing press, or discovered his religious, economic, and moral convictions, or any of the devices which supply him with meat and raiment or any of the sources of such pleasure as he may derive from literature or the fine arts? In short, civilization is little else than getting something for nothing.
|
Reactionary: A man walking backwards with his face to the future.
|
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
|
I am sure that in Canada the people appreciate this principle, and the general intelligence which prevails over that country is such that I am sure there is no danger of a reactionary policy ever finding a response in the hearts of any considerable number of our people.
|
Any movement in history which attempts to perpetuate itself, becomes reactionary.
|
Some might say I'm a right-wing, reactionary fanatic who had a horrible upbringing because his father beat him everyday with a bible, but it never did me any harm.
|
The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.
|
What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is now called insane, what used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking.
|