 The only way to change is to vote. People are responsible. |
| There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics. |
| When too many Americans don't vote or participate, some see apathy and despair. I see disappointment and even outrage. And I believe that out of this frustration can come hope and action. |
| Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. |
| I think the future also will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines. |
| Above and beyond the question of how to grow the economy there is a legitimate concern about how to grow the quality of our lives. |
| Sometimes, the only realists are the dreamers. |
| The kind of national goal we ought to be thinking about is way beyond national product - it is how do we as a nation help our children be the best kinds of people they could possibly be? |
| The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy. |
| I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power. |
| Successful organizing is based on the recognition that people get organized because they, too, have a vision. |
| There is a major ingredient missing from our perception of how changes are brought about; that ingredient is power. |
| Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. It's about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and the world. Politics is about doing well for the people. |
| Politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine. |
| Without trying, I'm different. |
| The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy. |
| If a teacher does not involve himself, his values, his commitments, in the course of discussion, why should the students? |
| Never separate the life you live from the words you speak. |
| I saw as a teacher how, if you take that spark of learning that those children have, and you ignite it, you can take a child from any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment. |
| I was talking about no nukes, the farm crisis. People said that wasn't stuff that a state auditor was supposed to be talking about. Maybe they were right. |
