Paul Wellstone Quotes - Page 2

There is an elementary aspiration which undergirds the humane impulse in our history and our culture and binds us together as political activists. This is a simple, irreducible, indisputable aspiration. It is the 'dream of justice' for a beloved community, in which the level of terror in people's lives is sharply reduced or maybe eliminated. It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics.

Successful organizing is based on the recognition that people get organized because they, too, have a vision.

We're not going to have real security until we invest in our children.

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.

There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics.

The Democratic Party has lost much of it credibility with working class and low-income people. It retards progress toward presenting a genuine alternative.

If a teacher does not involve himself, his values, his commitments, in the course of discussion, why should the students?

The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.

Our politics are our deepest form of expression: they mirror our past experiences and reflect our dreams and aspirations for the future.

I think the future also will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines

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.

We can and must move U.S. politics forward by means of committed participation.

Without trying, I'm different.

There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.

What makes community organizing especially attractive is the faith it places in the ability of the poor to make decisions for themselves.

The best kind of politics is when you help people become their own best selves.

We can remake the world daily.

Politics is not about power.

Let there be no distance between the words you say and the life you live.

We must renew democracy itself. We have to fight cynicism and inertia and restore faith in the advancement of our country.

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.

Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning.

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.

I'm short, I'm Jewish and I'm a liberal

What the poor, the weak, and the inarticulate desperately require is power, organization, and a sense of identity and purpose, not rarefied advice of political scientists.