Quotes from Jon Meacham

You have to appeal to people's best instincts, not their worst ones. You may win an election or so by doing the other, but it does a lot of harm to the country.

We truly believed that we were on God's side, and in spite of everything—the beatings, the bombings, the burnings—God's truth would prevail," Lewis recalled. The anguish and the duration of the struggle was, in a way, a vindication of the premise of the struggle itself—that this was the ultimate battle to bring light to darkness no matter how often darkness prevailed.

Gerould observed: "America is no longer a free country, in the old sense; and liberty is, increasingly, a mere rhetorical figure….The only way in which an American citizen who is really interested in all the social and political problems of his country can preserve any freedom of expression, is to choose the mob that is most sympathetic to him, and abide under the shadow of that mob.

Politics was at once clinical and human, driven by principles and passions that he (the leader) had to master and harness for the good of the whole.

All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.

Jefferson sensed that, as with lovers and intimate friends, there can often be no middle ground between engagement and estrangement. In the presence of passion, or of former passions, acquaintance is impossible. It is all or nothing, for once affections have cooled it is very difficult to bring them back to a middling temperature. In such cases human nature tends to rekindle the flames to their old force, or consign them to perpetual chill.

A president sets a tone for the nation and helps tailor habits of heart and of mind.

If sufficiently developed and organized, public sentiment, as manifested in Congress, can prevail over presidential intransigence. Lincoln

One wishes for a better outcome, for wiser heads, for a more compassionate public. Yet one wishes in vain. The only comfort, if we can call it that, is that a knowledge of our past failings may equip us to confront evil without delay when evil comes again. For it will.

My mind has been long fixed to bow to the judgment of the world, who will judge me by my acts, and will never take counsel from me as to what that judgment should be.

My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws.

appreciate the value of our free institutions." In these pursuits Lincoln was committed to what Theodore Parker defined as the "American Idea," which was a "composite idea…of three simple ones: 1. Each man is endowed with certain unalienable rights. 2. In respect of these rights all men are equal. 3. A government is to protect each man in the entire and actual enjoyment of all the unalienable rights….

At times in its history, Christianity has been an instrument of repression. In our living memory, however, it has also been deployed as a means of liberation and progress.

Costly grace…is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. —DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

The demands of exercising it once it is won, however, are so complex and fluid that ideological certitude is often among the first casualties of actual governing.

As a rule, politicians tend to remember the things they wish to emulate or the things they hope to avoid.

Dignified theatricality is an essential element of power.

The God of the Declaration does not choose nations or peoples to favor, or others to curse.

Well," Bush answered, "I'm worried that sometimes your idealism will get in the way of what I think is sound governance.

It is," TR said, "a base outrage to oppose a man because of his religion or birthplace, and all good citizens will hold any such effort in abhorrence.

Washington believed that every man was "accountable to God alone for his religious opinions" and "ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.

But as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., once said, "Righteousness is easy, also cheap, in retrospect." When we condemn posterity for slavery, or for Native American removal, or for denying women their full role in the life of the nation, we ought to pause and think: What injustices are we perpetuating even now that will one day face the harshest of verdicts by those who come after us?

In rich and captivating prose, Jessica DuLong kindly invites the rest of us on the journey of her lifetime: from a dot-com job to the fabled waters of the Hudson River, where she became a fireboat engineer. This is an unusual and fascinating book.

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