Evans Liberal Politics
September 24, 2010

Inspirational liberal political quotes & speeches

Liberal Quotations and Speeches That Inspire Us

 

Evans Liberal Politics, September 24, 2010 (original date of blog post is August 22, 2010), by Paul Evans: Here are some of my favorite political quotes, along with audio of a few favorite liberal speeches. I compiled this from three different articles which have previously been posted here on Evans Liberal Politics. Some of the quotes seem purely inspirational, but to me, they have strong political implications, as well. For surely politics is about how we should live, beyond just how we should govern each other. Thanks to The Quote Garden for several of these:

"The best time to plant a tree was always 20 years ago. The second best time is always today." ~ old Chinese saying

"Someone once asked me why do you always insist on taking the hard road? and I replied why do you assume I see two roads?" ~ unknown

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, It’s a matter of choice; It’s not a thing to be waited for, It’s a thing to be achieved." ~ William Jennings Bryan

"Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." ~ Joshua J. Marine

"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

"I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear." ~William E. Gladstone, 1866

"When you know what you want, and you want it badly enough, you’ll find a way to get it." ~ Jim Rohn

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." ~ Albert Einstein

"There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them." ~Phyllis Bottome

"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." ~ unknown

"Whenever I hear, ‘It can’t be done,’ I know I’m close to success." ~ Michael Flatley

"God gives every bird it’s food, but does not always drop it into the nest." ~ unknown, but I’d read his book!

"The Christian Right is neither." ~Author Unknown

"Kites rise highest against the wind not with it." ~ Sir Winston Churchill

"All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field." ~Albert Einstein

"A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future." ~Leonard Bernstein, The New York Times, 30 October 1988

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"An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry." ~George Eliot, Felix Holt, Chapter 5

"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio speech, 26 October 1939

"I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them." ~Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952

"Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other." ~ Oscar Ameringer

"The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They’re the kind of people who’d stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn’t bother to stop because they’d want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club." ~Dave Barry

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." ~John Stuart Mill

"Mankind will never see an end of trouble until… lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power… become lovers of wisdom." ~ Plato, The Republic

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have: three meals a day for their bodies, – education and culture for their minds – and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits." — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — And that’s why I am a liberal. ~ Paul Evans

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." — Albert Einstein.

On political activisim: "If you think you’re too small to be effective, you’ve never been in the dark with a mosquito." — source unknown.

Given to us by GreenSooner over at DailyKos: "Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House." – Bob Herbert

"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life." ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

"The net poses a fundamental threat not only to the authority of the government, but to all authority, because it permits people to organize, think, and influence one another without any institutional supervision whatsoever." — John Seabrook – American journalist, staff writer at The New Yorker since 1993 – Source: "My First Flame," New Yorker, 6 June 1994

"The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation’s development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution in spirit, the forces which had produced inequities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance, and fear." – Aung San Suu Kyi – Burmese Prime Minster-elect, General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (Myanmar)

NOTE by Paul Evans: As to the strong "liberalism" and even "radicalness" of a couple of these quotes, I make no apologies. I didn’t put them up because I agree with the radical-ness of a few of the ideas wholeheartedly, (although, mostly, I do), but because I think the IDEAS in them are important, and I wanted you to be exposed to them. I think most of us here can agree that the freedom of the internet was one of the main reasons Barack Obama was elected. Hopefully these quotations are a little inspirational to you. I also think the internet and it’s freedom is key to humanity’s future. In that context, internet neutrality is crucial for the future, so that the “little people” in this world can get the truth out, freely and without limitation.

Some Famous Liberal Political Speeches

 

Martin Luther King: The amazing "I Have a Dream" speech. — 2:50

Robert F. Kennedy: a speech by Bobby Kennedy made on the night Martin Luther King was assassinated. The pure goodness and wonder in this speech is amazing. — 6:10

Abraham Lincoln: Sam Waterston reads Lincoln’s incredibly short but amazing Gettysburg Address. — 2:39

John F. Kennedy: JFK calls for a revolution in energy use and warns about climate change, calling for use of renewable resources. — 1:46

John F. Kennedy: A famous and infamous speech about secret societies and freedom of the press, which some speculate may have been a reason that JFK was killed (conspiracy theory). –5:24

Three famous speeches by Barack Obama

O.K. this is a liberal news and politics website: of COURSE we are going to have some seminal speeches by Barack Obama:

Barack Obama: An early one here – Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. — 18:47

Barack Obama: Obama accepts the nomination at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. While this is very inspiring, it made me a little sad at some of the unfulfilled promises. — 50:19

Barack Obama: The President-elect delivers perhaps his most powerful speech on election night in Chicago. — 17:00

Why I Love Computers

And a couple more speeches on why I am a computer nut….

Steve Jobs: The founder of Apple here is saying some pretty profound things about the nature of what computers can do for our minds. The short speech is called “Computers are like bicycles for our minds.” — 1:39

Steve Jobs: Commencement address at Stanford in 2005 which is very inspirational to me. — 15:04

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