227 Quotes by Jon Meacham

Politicians, singers, and preachers are in the same business, using sound to move hearts and change minds.

America has long raised political and cultural cognitive dissonance to an art form. We are capable of living with enormous inequality and injustice while convincing ourselves that we are in fact moving toward what Churchill called the “broad, sun-lit uplands.”

The Occupy Wall Street protests at last suggest that America’s wealth gap is once again becoming an organizing political principle in the country.

Fear divides; hope unifies.

With a chuckle, Churchill had replied: “Neither look for nor expect gratitude but rather get whatever comfort you can out of the belief that your effort is constructive in purpose.

The way to put oneself in a position to take the harder, more honorable political path is to argue for one’s virtues in a vigorous way.

If the men and women of the past, with all their flaws and limitations and ambitions and appetites, could press on through ignorance and superstition, racism and sexism, selfishness and greed, to create a freer, stronger nation, then perhaps we, too, can right wrongs and take another step toward that most enchanting and elusive of destinations: a more perfect Union.

Cynically but accurately put, Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them – take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example.

The best political figures create the impression that they find everyone they encounter to be what Abigail Adams said Jefferson was: “one of the choice ones of the earth.