Skip to content

The short lesson that comes out of long experience in political agitation is something like this: all the motive power in all of these movements is the instinct of religious feeling. All the obstruction comes from attempting to rely on anything else. Conciliation is the enemy.

— John Jay Chapman Practical Agitation (1900)

Another quote →

More quotes by John Jay Chapman

Every generation is a secret society and has incommunicable enthusiasms, tastes and interests which are a mystery both to its predecessors and to posterity.

People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this,—that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.

Practical Agitation (1900)

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Practical Agitation (1900)

When a man talks with absolute sincerity and freedom he goes on a voyage of discovery. The whole company has shares in the enterprise.

Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same—hardihood. Give them raw truth.

Practical Agitation (1900)

All John Jay Chapman quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Jay Chapman (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.