93 Quotes by Eric Liu

In the end, a new Americanization movement can’t just be about listing our privileges and immunities, which we catalog in our laws. It also has to be about reinforcing our duties, which we convey in our habits.

Today’s multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they’d like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white.

When Bryan Price taught me how to throw a changeup, he made me see myself. All my life, I’ve been the equivalent of a fastball pitcher – trying to use blazing speed and brute force to wow the people around me.

If whiteness were of no particular advantage, then having a fuller color wheel of skin tones would be purely a matter of celebration. But whiteness – just a drop of it – does still carry privilege. You learn that very young in America.

Every person and institution with power in our society today has it because we give it to them.

If you want to change the story that justifies current structures of power and privilege, you must have such a combination of bold goals and specific steps.

I had heard so much negative talk about our generation, that we’re slackers and young fogies, that I knew wasn’t true of the people I know.

True patriots believe that we should measure a citizen’s worth by contribution to country and community, not by wealth or power-that those whom America has benefited most should contribute in proportion to their good fortune-and that serving others should be esteemed more highly than serving self.

In our country, there is so much that’s wrong with the way we deliver care to the aging, the very young, and the infirm. But you can’t beat something with nothing. It is not enough to decry what’s broken. You have to describe the alternative and make it possible for people to believe in it. To care.