Quotes from Eric Liu

You cannot mistake Bush's clarity of purpose. He believes in a story about freedom and opportunity that makes his followers feel like they aren't just ticking their days down but are part of something larger than themselves.

True fans of the Constitution, like true fans of the national pastime, acknowledge the critical role of human judgment in making tough calls. We don't expect flawless interpretation. We expect good faith. We demand honesty.

If you don't learn how to practice power, someone else will do it for you—in your name, on your turf, with your voice, and often against your interests.

There was an omnivorous intellect that won him the family sobriquet of Walking Encyclopedia.

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.

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.

uses a method for organizing that centers on three nested narratives: the story of self, the story of us, and the story of now. He teaches organizers entering into any setting to start not with policy proposals or high concepts like justice but with biographies—their own, and those of the people they hope to mobilize. What are the stories you tell about yourself? Why do you tell them that way? How can we find connections across our stories of origin that build trust and common cause?

Power justifies itself, in countless small ways. But one of the big ways it does so is by creating an ideological narrative about how things got to be this way—and what must now change. These narratives are more than technical explanations. They are epic morality tales, and they typically follow this sequence: Paradise Paradise Lost Paradise Redeemed

warns about the dangers of treating art and creativity as commodities. A commodity mindset deadens human bonds of trust and affection.

First, power concentrates. That is, it feeds on itself and compounds (as does powerlessness). • Second, power justifies itself. People invent stories to legitimize the power they have (or lack). • Third, power is infinite. There is no inherent limit on the amount of power people can create.

With food still scarce,there was no longer a right to exist. You needed to earn your spot. 

oo many people are profoundly illiterate in power (TED Talk: Why ordinary people need to understand power). As a result, it's become ever easier for those who do understand how power operates in civic life to wield a disproportionate influence and fill the void created by the ignorance of the majority.

the "etiquette of freedom," to use poet Gary Snyder's phrase. It encompasses small acts like teaching your children to be honest in their dealings with others. It includes serving on community councils and as soccer coaches. It means leaving a place in better shape than you found it. It means helping others during hard times and being able to ask for help. It means resisting the temptation to call a problem someone else's.  

And that brings me to my definition of power, which is simply this: the capacity to make others do what you would have them do. It sounds menacing, doesn't it? We don't like to talk about power. We find it scary. We find it somehow evil. We feel uncomfortable naming it. In the culture and mythology of democracy, power resides with the people.

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

we exist today because this is how our ancestors behaved. We evolve today by ensuring that our definition of "our group" is wide enough to take advantage of diversity and narrow enough to be actionable.

What I think you think about what I want creates storms of behaviour that change what is.

But in this era of concentrated wealth, severe inequality, and rigged rules we have a master narrative that power is inherently evil. That's why the civic myths of this age are dark political melodramas like House of Cards and grim fantasies like Game of Thrones in which nice guys finish headless and the only winners are those who lie, cheat, and kill. We're not in The West Wing anymore, folks. Mr. Smith died in Washington.

Alexis de Tocqueville warned that as the economy and government of America got bigger, citizens could become smaller: less practiced in the forms of everyday power, more dependent on vast distant social machines, more isolated and atomized—and therefore more susceptible to despotism.

The average American is heard only if wealthy donors happen to be saying the same thing.

After watching my first World Series in 1977, I wanted to be Reggie Jackson. I bought a big Reggie poster. I ate Reggie candy bars. I entered a phase during which I insisted on having the same style of glasses Reggie had: gold wire frames with the double bar across.

My grandfather was a general in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during World War II, and I grew up hearing the pilot stories and seeing pictures of him in uniform.

Six decades ago, as Mao's Communists seized power, the question in Washington was, 'Who lost China?' Now, as his capitalist descendants stand astride the world stage and Washington worries about decline, it seems to be, 'Who lost America?'

There have been, in recent years, many Asian American pioneers in the public eye who've defied the condescendingly complimentary 'model minority' stereotype: actors like Lucy Liu, artists like Maya Lin, moguls like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. They are known, often admired.