Quotes About Engagement

At some point we need to be understood as more of a porous social platform than an impervious temple to culture.

People who supported Obama felt like they formed a relationship, that they were being spoken to. The way that campaign worked and the way he's worked during his first term is to make people feel like he's grasping their hand, whether it's by tweeting or email, moments after an event, sometimes during an event. It makes people relate to him.

I'll do it. I'll work with the Juggernaut Collective.

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

But the church's struggle with slavery does illustrate forcefully how assumed understandings of Scripture, based on simple readings of the texts, have been overturned through a deeper engagement with the truth of God's Word, enlivened by the witness of human experience.

it's our task to immerse ourselves...while keeping eyes and hearts open...

See?" said Boris, interrupting Vitya right in

Il mondo non mi verrà incontro, perciò devo andargli incontro io.

That maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open.

El mundo no acudirá a mí, solía decir, yo tengo que salir a su encuentro.

Lincoln understood that the greatest challenge for a leader in a democratic society is to educate public opinion.

As S. S. McClure well understood, the "vitality of democracy" depends on "popular knowledge of complex questions." At

There is no one left," McClure exhorted his readers as he cast about for a remedy to America's woes at the turn of the twentieth century, "none but all of us.

White vividly recalled sitting "pop-eyed with wonder" at the edge of his chair while Roosevelt spoke "with a kind of dynamic, burning candor" about his plans.

Roosevelt's leadership style was, in actuality, governed by just such a series of simple dictums and aphorisms: Hit the ground running; consolidate control; ask questions of everyone wherever you go; manage by wandering around; determine the basic problems of each organization and hit them head-on; when attacked, counterattack; stick to your guns; spend your political capital to reach your goals; and then when your work is stymied or done, find a way out.

national press. He called them by their first names, invited them

Once Roosevelt had agreed to be drafted and assumed the responsibility of running for governor, he was in it for keeps. "When you're in politics you have to play the game," he told a friend.

How did the team accomplish so much, so quickly, and for so long? The answers require an appreciation of Johnson's unsurpassed work ethic, the feeling among staff members that they were learning important skills, and the sense of shared engagement in a significant mission.

Roosevelt insisted that politics was not a proper occupation. As a citizen, one might intermittently engage in political activity but it would be a deadfall misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office and all of it puts him under the heavy astrain to barter his conviction for the stake of holding office.

Act like you're talking to those folks," he counseled his students. "Look one of them in the eye and then move on and look another one in the eye." During competitions, he utilized all his supple array of gestures and facial expressions to cue and prompt—now frowning, narrowing his eyes, creasing his brow, shaking his head, gaping in wonder—creating a silent movie to steer and goad his charges to victory.

A five minute speech," he pointed out, "with fifteen minutes spent afterward is much more effective than a fifteen minute speech, no matter how inspiring, that leaves only five minutes for handshaking.

For the first time in the history of the country," a writer in Collier's Weekly exclaimed, great corporate leaders and union representatives would join "the President of the United States to talk over their differences face-to-face.

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag—and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement.

Perhaps it is not correct to say that she read it, for unfortunately the number of people who actually read magazines, papers or even books is very small indeed.