All the evil in the world is the fault of the self-styled pure in heart, a result of their eagerness to unearth secrets and expose them to the light of the sun.

Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.

As soon as the people fix one Shame of the World, another turns up.

Every man is a reformer until reform tramps on his toes.

One great flaw in the reforming passion is that in its eagerness to remedy social wrongs it tends to neglect, certainly to undervalue, the experience of those whose lives it wishes to improve.

Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labours in vain: and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves?

You've tried to reform what will not learn. Shut doors on traits that you wish were dead; They will open a window and return.

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.