More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I say his true political gift was that he liked people…and he made them feel liked.
“No, but my father owns a stationery store on Main Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, if you’ve ever been. Perkins & Butler Paper and Twine.”
we are kin to the first female scholar in Revolutionary America.”
believe poverty in America is an economic problem that can be solved…and I intend to solve it.”
Florence Kelley was a legendary reformer who trained at Hull House with Jane Addams and had earned a law degree. Having once been appointed as a public inspector in Illinois, she was also a moving spirit behind the recent founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
From the Statue of Liberty to the Lower East Side
to Wall Street and Broadway, people came here from all over the world in search of new ideas and a better life.
“Empathy takes imagination, and most people ain’t got any.
“My dear girl, making a few enemies is how you know you’re doing things right.”
I think it takes courage—real spiritual daring—to allow oneself to be known.”
James Otis Jr. though—” “I know of him! Otis was brilliant. No Taxation without Representation was a slogan of his invention, wasn’t it? I often wonder, in fact, why he isn’t mentioned by Americans with reverence, like Washington and Adams.”
founded for a purpose and with a mission: to provide for liberty and the general welfare.
vowed to face the future together and make it all right.
Belle Moskowitz,
“That people want to feel heard. Everybody wants to have that sense of belonging, of being on the inside. No one wants to be left out. So it’s not such a trial to indulge them.”
Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”
The KKK had a strong hold on the Eastern Shore of Maryland,
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,
Section 24 agents behaving like gangsters, roughing people up and raiding private homes and dance halls looking for immigrants to blackmail
Most of them owed their positions to nepotism rather than talent or skill.
could eliminate the positions altogether, pleading a lack of funds, which was actually true because they’d already stolen all the money in their budget.
people to vote away their own rights and let him do as he pleased. I’m not laughing now.”
American experiment has repeatedly proved that people fleeing tyranny make grateful citizens—decent, hardworking, and productive.
When in doubt, do what’s right.
If we don’t keep chasing the future, we’ll think too much about the past.”
No government can or should solve all the problems of every citizen, but we’ll help to cushion the blows of life from cradle to grave.
For there is no feeling on earth like being understood, seen, and valued by someone
Social Security—which was expanded again and again to cover more Americans of every race and creed—is now so much a part of American psychology that I truly believe no politician, political party, or political group can possibly destroy it and maintain a democratic system. I suppose I should also be grateful that the reforms I fought for are bricks so firmly embedded in the edifice of our national life that Americans now take them for granted.
