What is radical?

Famous quotes containing the word radical:

    We, when we sow the seeds of doubt deeper than the most up-to- date and modish free-thought has ever dreamed of doing, we well know what we are about. Only out of radical skepsis, out of moral chaos, can the Absolute spring, the anointed Terror of which the time has need.
    Thomas Mann (1875–1955)

    To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.
    Emma Goldman (1869–1940)

    A radical is one of whom people say “He goes too far.” A conservative, on the other hand, is one who “doesn’t go far enough.” Then there is the reactionary, “one who doesn’t go at all.” All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have coined the term “progressive.” I should say that a progressive is one who insists upon recognizing new facts as they present themselves—one who adjusts legislation to these new facts.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)