Quotes About Engagement

Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.

Verse is a mechanism by which we can create interpretative illusions suggesting profoundities of response and understanding which far exceed the engagement or research of the writer.

I am always pleased to be asked to write a poem.

No one wants to read poetry. You have to make it impossible for them to put the poem down--impossible for them to stop reading it, word after word. You have to keep them from closing the book.

I do not write for the public. You are my public and I hope to convert you.

This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me

One must read poetry with one's nerves.

It's a good thing to get poetry off the shelves and more into public life.

One doesn't read poetry while thinking of other things.

What happens on the football field matters, not in the way that food matters but as poetry does to some people and alcohol does to others: it engages the personality.

If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.

One of the chief symptoms of every revolution is the sharp and sudden increase in the number of ordinary people who take an active, independent and forceful interest in politics.

Avoid any specific discussion of public policy at public meetings.

Either one lives for politics or one lives off politics.

I don't know a lot about politics, but I can recognise a good party man when I see one.

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

American voters have to pay closer attention to politics if they want to avoid four years of whining about the outcome.

Don't pretend that you can just be oblivious to politics. You can't. What you never do is break your personal code. Have a code and keep it. You should never compromise what your priorities are.

Love and politics are the two great figures of social engagement. Politics is enthusiasm with a collective; with love, two people. So love is the minimal form of communism.

Politics is everywhere.. it is in your shirt.. in your pants.. everywhere.