Quotes by Jon Meacham - Page 2

The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Christian
Decline
Fall
Notion
Religious
Religious Life
Life Political Way
Believers
Creates
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Whoever rises to deliver the inaugural Address of 2013 will speak to a nation in which the American Dream is under profound economic and cultural pressure. This is perhaps best measured by the state of the middle class.
Jon Meacham / Editor
American Dream
Middle Class
Profound
Address
Cultural
Deliver
Measured
Rises
Whoever
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Given that sexual orientation is innate and that we are all, in theological terms, children of God, to deny access to some sacraments based on sexuality is as wrong as denying access to some sacraments based on race or gender.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Access
Children
Deny
Gender
Innate
Orientation
Race
Sexuality
Theological
Sexual
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Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Action
Distinction
Motive
Plot
Psychology
Rely
Sibling
Thrillers
Emphasize
Literary
Mysteries
Roughly
Same Things
Whereas
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The central tenet of Christianity as it has come down to us is that we are to reach out when our instinct is to pull inward; to give when we want to take; to love when we are inclined to hate; to include when are tempted to exclude.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Christianity
Giving
Hate
Instinct
Inward
Tempted
Central
Exclude
Inclined
Pull
Reach
To Love
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An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Faith
Great
Certitude
Evidence
Free Will
Fundamentalism
Liberty
Mind
Reason
Rejection
Tradition
Free
Make
Own
Based
Human
Gifts
Having
Make Up
Minds
Worth
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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 Meacham / Editor
Apostles
Bible
Debate
Evidence
Fervent
Heirs
Prove
Resurrection
Touch
Believers
Demanding
Earliest
Just As Much
Probe
Thomas
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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 Meacham / Editor
Wise
American Politics
Dare
Execution
Opponents
Political
Real
Rogues
Spirit
American
Automatic
Nation
Cooperate
Cultivate
Fearing
Supporters
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In rich and captivating prose, Jessica DuLong kindly invites the rest of us on the journey of her lifetime: from a dot-com job to the fabled waters of the Hudson River, where she became a fireboat engineer. This is an unusual and fascinating book.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Jobs
Journey
Book
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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 / Editor
Alas
Caricatures
Comforting
Complicated
Corporations
Private Sector
Public Sector
Great Always Reality
Great Reality Always
Fail
Governments
Sector
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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 / Editor
Government
America
Energetic
Engaged
Entrepreneurial
Looking Back
Private Sector
Wish
Attentive
Edit
Expense
Sector
Sphere
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Extremists often derive their inspiration from literal interpretations of texts that should rightly be read not as Associated Press reports from the ancient world, but as theological and literary enterprises requiring independent intellectual assessment.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Ancient
Assessment
Independent
Inspiration
Intellectual
Literal
Reports
Theological
Associated
Derive
Enterprises
Extremists
Interpretations
Press
Requiring
Rightly
Texts
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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 / Editor
Doe
Matter
Perspective
Time History Where
Afforded
Brutally
Turning
Innocents
Passage
Rank
Suddenly
Turning Point
Victims
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America has long raised political and cultural cognitive dissonance to an art form. We are capable of living with enormous inequality and injustice while convincing ourselves that we are in fact moving toward what Churchill called the "broad, sun-lit uplands."
Jon Meacham / Editor
Art
America
Moving
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In America, now, let us - Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, wiccan, whatever - fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one's enemies. A tall order, that - perhaps the tallest of all.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Agnostic
Atheist
Christian
Conviction
Fighting
Followers
Jew
Tall
Terrorism
Calls
Enemies
Let Us
Muslim
Tallest
To Love
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I am a huge admirer of Franklin Roosevelt's, and I believe social security has done untold good in alleviating the once-widespread issue of poverty among the elderly. FDR believed in the greatness and generosity of Americans - but he was also a cold-blooded politician.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Admirer
Believe
Elderly
Generosity
Greatness
Poverty
Social Security
Good Believe I Believe
Good Believe I Am
Alleviating
Believed
Fdr
Roosevelt
Untold
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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 / Editor
Running
Capitol
Capitol Hill
Classroom
Country
Thinking
White House
Institution
Surely
Tank
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We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Interesting
Males
Trying
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Once the cry and the cause of a generation of progressives to make America safer, fairer and cleaner, 'regulation' is now a dirty word in our politics. Even Democrats are quick to talk about cutting regulations; Republicans hate them with - how to put it? - evangelical fervor.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Cry
Cutting
Dirty
Evangelical
Fervor
Hate
Regulation
Cause
Cleaner
Democrats
Fairer
Republicans
Generation
Progressives
Quick
Safer
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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 / Editor
War
Book
Instance
Military
Older People
Tangible
World War Ii
Love War History
Embody
Fought
Grandfathers
World War
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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 / Editor
Character
Christian
Religious
Religious Faith
Faith Politics Good
Explicitly
Politics Faith Good
Good Thing
Influenced
Shaped
Movements
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If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Nature
Society
Access
Color
Crow
Deny
Gay
Gender
Homosexual
Homosexuality
Identity
Jim Crow
Religious
Rights
Secular
Sexuality
Skin Color
Person
Then
Skin
Part
His
Intrinsic
Jim
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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 Meacham / Editor
Assault
Capitalism
Children
Comfortable
Conviction
Democratic
Economic
Enemy
Faces
Hard Work
Inequality
Real
Stronger
Rules
Direction
Great Enemy
Present
Perennial
Rewarded
Work Hard
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From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner, I think, if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Affection
Enormous
Hostility
Inspire
One Day
President
Thinking
Unimaginable
Absolutely
History Great Remember
Full
Fdr
Inspires
Jackson
Jefferson
Lincoln
Seemed
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The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Authority
Bible
Biblical
Definitions
Equal
Forbidden
Haircuts
Lending
Lord
Slavery
Subjugation
Support
Traditional
Validity
Women Are
Assert
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I've been accused of being old before my time more than once. It's true that I've always felt an affinity for, and been comfortable around, older people. I attribute this to a childhood spent around my grandparents - and even a great-grandparent or two. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Accused
Affinity
Childhood
Comfortable
Grandparent
My Time
Older People
People
Two
Time Always People
Time Childhood Always
Attribute
Experiences
Older
Spent
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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 / Editor
Believe
Children
Discrimination
Respectable
Years
Time Believe I Believe
Early Years
Time Look Believe
Seemingly
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If heaven is understood more as God's space on earth than as an ethereal region apart from the essential reality we know, then what happens on earth matters even more than we think, for the Christian life becomes a continuation of the unfolding work of Jesus, who will one day return to set the world to rights.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Jesus
Christian
Christian Life
Continuation
Heaven
Return
Thinking
Understood
Unfolding
Life God Work
Apart
Essential
Matters
Region
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Whether one believes or not, religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics, and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive, it remains vital, inspiring great good and, sometimes, great evil.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Inspiring
Religion
Attention
Counterproductive
Enterprise
Evil
Force
Misguided
Religious
Worst
Life Best Politics
Believes
Entire
Great Evil
Vital
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Justified or not, the Supreme Court has a kind of sacred status in American life. For whatever reason, Presidents can safely run against Congress, and vice versa, but I think there is an inherent popular aversion to assaults on the court itself. Perhaps it has to do with an instinctive belief that life needs umpires.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Running
American Life
Aversion
Belief
Congress
Court
Inherent
Justified
Sacred
Supreme
Supreme Court
Thinking
Umpires
Vice Versa
Instinctive
Popular
Presidents
Status
Versa
Vice
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I believe history will come to view 9/11 as an event on par with November 22, 1963, the date on which John F. Kennedy was murdered, cutting short a presidency that was growing ever more promising. Dreams died that day in Dallas; it is easy to imagine the 1960s turning out rather differently had President Kennedy lived.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Dream
History
Believe
Cutting
Dallas
Died
Easy
Imagine
November
Presidency
President Kennedy
Turning
Date
Short
Event
John
Par
Promising
Rather
View
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It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation' between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Christianity
Church And State
Losing
Political
Religious
Separation
Traditional
Wall
Appeal
Intended
Remembering
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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.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Born
Civil Rights
Civil Rights Movement
Clubs
Crow
Dog
Earth
Epic
Fire
Force
Jim Crow
Movement
Police
Rights
Sight
Good Fire Always
Billy
Civil
Daily
Dogs
Gathered
Hose
Jim
Plain
Rights Movement
Wondered
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Among the many problems with taking the Bible literally is it reduces the most mysterious and complex of realities to simple - even simplistic - terms. Yes, scripture speaks of fire and damnation and eternal bliss, but the Bible is the product of human hands and hearts, and much of the imagery is allegorical, not meteorological.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Bible
Bliss
Eternal
Fire
Heart
Imagery
Mysterious
Reality
Scripture
Simple
Allegorical
Complex
Hearts
Literally
Product
Realities
Simplistic
Speaks
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One wonders whether the Obama re-election campaign may be on the right track as it seeks to apply the you-break-it-you-own-it rule to Bush and the American economy. Hardly a day goes by without President Obama or his surrogates arguing that it takes longer than four years to recover from an economic crisis so long in the making.
Jon Meacham / Editor
American Economy
Arguing
Crisis
Economic
Economic Crisis
Long
President
President Obama
Right Track
Track
Years
Obama
Apply
Bush
Campaign
Goes
Hardly
Longer
Making
Wonders
Re-Election
Recover
Rule
Seeks
Takes
Whether
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Only the most unapologetic biblical fundamentalists, for instance, take every biblical injunction literally. If we all took all scripture at the same level of authority, then we would be more open to slavery, to the subjugation of women, to wider use of stoning. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against divorce in the strongest of terms.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Jesus
Authority
Bible
Biblical
Divorce
Instance
Scripture
Subjugation
Frequently
Fundamentalists
Injunction
Literally
Same Level
Wider
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It's possible that the 2012 general-election race will be the least overtly religious one since 1972, the last campaign before Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jimmy Carter brought evangelicalism into the political mainstream. That's because faith remains a complicated issue for Obama, who is still wrongly thought to be a Muslim in some quarters.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Carter
Complicated
Issues
Jimmy
Mainstream
Quarters
Race
Religious
Wade
Obama
Rise
Brought
Campaign
Issue
Jimmy Carter
Least
Muslim
Roe
Wrongly
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Environmental concern is a little like dieting or paying off credit-card debt - an episodically terrific idea that burns brightly and then seems to fade when we realize there's a reason we need to diet or pay down our debt. The reason is that it's really, really hard, and too many of us in too many spheres of life choose the easy over the hard.
Jon Meacham / Editor
Diet
Environmental
Concern
Debt
Dieting
Ideas
Spheres
Terrific
Brightly
Burns
Fade
Paying
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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 / Editor
Children
Father
Growing Up
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In the closed circle of the war cabinet, pounded by terrible report after terrible report, there had been uncertainty about whether he could fend off the drift to exploring a deal with Hitler. The determination of the larger group trumped the tentativeness of the smaller, and Churchill fulfilled his role as leader by disentangling himself from defeatism--one of his singular achievements at the end of May 1940.
Jon Meacham / Editor
War
Circles
Determination
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Jon Meacham Quotes - Page 2

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