#ere

History tells us that America does best when the private sector is energetic and entrepreneurial and the government is attentive and engaged. Who among us, really, would, looking back, wish to edit out either sphere at the entire expense of the other? ↗

— Jon Meacham

#among #attentive #back #best #does

I am an Episcopalian who takes the faith of my fathers seriously, and I would, I think, be disheartened if my own young children were to turn away from the church when they grow up. I am also a critic of Christianity, if by critic one means an observer who brings historical and literary judgment to bear on the texts and traditions of the church. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#am #away #bear #brings #children

I believe that my children, who are young, will look back on the early years of the 21st century in rather the same way I look back on the middle of the 20th: as a time when seemingly respectable people supported discrimination against Americans simply because those Americans were different from themselves. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#against #back #because #believe #century

The American Dream may be slipping away. We have overcome such challenges before. To recover the Dream requires knowing where it came from, how it lasted so long and why it matters so much. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#american dream #away #before #came #challenges

It would be great if politics were fact-based, but it is not, and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution, not the country. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#capitol hill #classroom #country #does #great

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 Meacham

#always #caricatures #comforting #complicated #corporations

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history, for instance, because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#around #because #being #books #both

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing - good for our political culture. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#ago #character #christian #culture #decisively

With the perspective afforded by the passage of time, where does 9/11 rank as a turning point in our national history? For the victims and their families, innocents going about their lives, suddenly and brutally murdered, no other day can ever matter as much. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#afforded #brutally #day #does #ever

To be interested in the public good we must be disinterested, that is, not interested in goods in which our personal selves are wrapped up. ↗

— George H. Mead

#good #goods #interested #must #not interested