On the “decline” of America:
“… but the United States is still by far the most important nation in the world. All the forces of the earth are pouring through the United States . All the forces of the earth are pouring through the United States. All the forces of the earth are concentrated there. Europe’s economic power, or Japan’s economic and political ferment, or all that is happening in Russia or Eastern Europe, or China’s immensity, or Africa or the Middle East–it is all coming together and pouring through the government and people of America and the American land. It is up to America how all these forces will meet and act on each other and resound back into the world, the earth. Population, environment, morality, technology, medicine and old age, the preservation and destruction of tradition, new knowledge, new values–all, everything, is coming together in America in one way or the other of its effects or phases. What happens in America is what will determine the development and action of all these forces.”
–German businessman quoted in The American Soul by Jacob Needleman
On listening:
“This kind of process took place during the blistering summer of Philadelphia summer, the process of a group of ordinary human beings listening to each other, not as people usually listen to each other, but as people can listen: from a source deeper in themselves which opens them not only to the thought and views of their neighbor, but to something wiser and finer in themselves and, perhaps, in the universe itself. “
On fame:
“…when we consider the motivation, in Washington and in many other of the Founding Fathers, which may seem to us now as superficial and vain–namely, their preoccupation with what they referred to as “fame.” This word meant something very different, and much more honorable, than what we mean by it today–it implied becoming worthy to be known and respected by others.”
On leadershio:
“If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility. If he would lead them, he must follow behind. In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed. When he stands before them. they will not be harmed. The whole world will support him and and will not tire of him. Because he does not compete. He does not meet competition.”
–Tao Te Ching
Woodrow Wilson on Lincoln:
“We say [Lincoln] was honest; men used to call him “Honest Abe.” But honesty is not q quality. Honesty is the manifestation of character. Lincoln was honest because there was nothing small or petty about him, and only smallness and pettiness in a nature can produce dishonesty. Such honesty is a quality of largeness. It is that openness of nature which will not condescend to subterfuge. which is too big to conceal itself. Little men run to cover and deceive you. Big men cannot and will not run to cover, and do not deceive you. Of course, Lincoln was honest. But that was not a peculiar characteristic of him. He was not small or mean, and his honesty was not produced by any calculation, but was the genial expression of the great nature that was behind it.
“Then we may also say of Lincoln that he saw things always with his own eyes. And it is very interesting that we can pick out individual men to say that of them. The opposite of the proposition is, that most men see things with other men’s eyes. And that is the pity of the whole business of the world. Most men do not see things with their own eyes.”
Historian Richard Hofstadter on Lincoln:
“Here, perhaps, is the best measure of Lincoln’s personal eminence in the human calendar–that he was chastened and not intoxicated by power.
On the “Second Democracy”:
“The second democracy is a community devoted solely and entirely to truth. It does not accumulate wealth. … It doe not make war. It is not “strong”; it is not an economic force in the world. It does not have an army. It does not make treaties. It does not devise financial innovations.”
“The second democracy is the soul of the first democracy–our democracy, our world.
“The second democracy–the community based on the equality of all men and woman who search for conscience–requires the political and social freedom and external tolerance that are provided by the kind of democratic society Americans now live in and whose principles were so carefully crafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787.”
—Quotes from The American Soul by Jacob Needleman
