Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma.
Jon MeachamRead
As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I've always wondered how on earth people of good will could have conceivably lived with Jim Crow - with the daily degradations, the lynchings in plain sight, and, as the movement gathered force, with the fire hoses and the police dogs and the billy clubs.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the moral questioning of inaction during the civil rights movement.
Jon Meacham's quote contemplates the complicity of individuals in the face of gross injustices such as Jim Crow laws and the violence of the civil rights era. It raises profound questions about human nature, morality, and the responsibilities of those who witness oppression, urging reflection on how one can remain passive amidst such clear wrongs.
Themes
Civil RightsComplicityMoralityInjusticeOppression
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on historical injustices, this quote can emphasize the importance of standing against oppression.
More from Jon Meacham
All quotes →It would be wonderful if the public sector were always great, or always terrible; or if the private sector were always great, or always terrible. Alas, reality is more complicated than comforting caricatures. Governments fail, and corporations fail.
Jon MeachamRead
As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom - not least freedom of conscience.
Jon MeachamRead
The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction. That great enemy of democratic capitalism, economic inequality, is real and growing.
Jon MeachamRead
A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along?
Jon MeachamRead
One of the earliest resurrection scenes in the Bible is that of Thomas demanding evidence - he wanted to see, to touch, to prove. Those who question and probe and debate are heirs of the apostles just as much as the most fervent of believers.
Jon MeachamRead
Similar quotes
The news and the truth are not the same thing.
Walter LippmannRead
The diseased, anyway, are more interesting than the healthy. The words of the diseased, even those who can manage only a murmur, carry more weight than those of the healthy. Then, too, all healthy people will in the future know disease. That sense of time, ah, the diseased man’s sense of time, what treasure hidden in a desert cave. Then, too the diseased truly bite, whereas the healthy pretend to bite but really only snap at the air. Then, too, then, too, then, too.
Roberto BolanoRead
All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
I am not unique in my elegiac sadness at watching reading die, in the era that celebrates Stephen King and J.K. Rowling rather than Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll.
Harold BloomRead
Unless a man gives himself entirely to the Cross, in a spirit of humility and self-abasement; unless he casts himself down to be trampled underfoot by all and despised, accepting injustice, contempt and mockery; unless he undergoes all these things with joy for the sake of the Lord, not claiming any kind of human reward whatsoever - glory or honor or earthly pleasures - he cannot become a true Christian.
Mark The EvangelistRead
Our destiny is to become what we think, to have our thoughts become our bodies and our bodies become our thoughts.
Terence MckennaRead