Grassroots Quotes

• There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics.

  Paul Wellstone

  Change, America, Political

  Paul Wellstone (2001). “The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda”, p.216, Random House

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• The best education I received was working with people in the community on a grassroots basis. Because what it taught me was that ordinary people, when they are working together can do extraordinary things.

  Barack Obama

  People, Community, Working Together

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• All change starts with a distant rumble at the grassroots level.

  Tom Coburn

  Levels, Rumble

  Senator Tom Coburn, John Hart (2013). “The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting America”, p.94, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

  Tom Peters

  Games, People, Support

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• Spontaneous combustion of grassroots politics is the future.

  Dick Morris

  Spontaneity, Spontaneous, Combustion

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• Even though mother's issues are not front page news they touch us all personally, some more than others and I believe passionately in the power of grassroots engagement.

  Joan Blades

  Mother, Believe, Issues

  "Back to the Basics" by Joan Blades, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 13, 2006.

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• I was elected because I believed in what we call "grassroots politics," politics from the bottom up, not the top down.

  Barack Obama

  Top Down, Bottom

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• On a grassroots level we say that man can touch more than he can grasp.

  Gabriel Marcel

  Men, Levels

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• I didn't have big movie offers, or any big agents wanting to work with me. I had to go grassroots, start at the bottom and go on 150 auditions before someone finally gave me a shot

  Donnie Wahlberg

  Agents, Goes On, Auditions

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• Better still - your history has shown how powerful a moral catharsis expressed through popular resistance to injustice can sometimes be; I have in mind the grassroots opposition to the Vietnam War.

  Breyten Breytenbach

  Powerful, War, Mind

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• We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the covenants.

  Cornel West

  Next Steps, Movement, Alive

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• There's enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.

  Jim Hightower

  Effort, Campaigns, Levels

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• It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What you do? You integrate it with cream; you make it weak. If you pour too much cream in, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it’ll put you to sleep.

  Malcolm X

  Strong, Coffee, Sleep

  Malcolm X's Speech at the Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference in Detroit, Michigan, teachingamericanhistory.org. November 10, 1963.

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• URGE is a grassroots charity. We organized to get some incubators to give to the hospital for the kids. We donate money to orphanages.

  Ziggy Marley

  Kids, Giving, Charity

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• If you do your work, if you are committed at the grassroots level, if you have a vision for the long run (not only short-sighted interest), you can change public opinion.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Running, Long, Vision

  "Tariq Ramadan: My Absence Would Certainly Be The Most Powerful Speech I Have Ever Given At ISNA". The Islamic Monthly Interview, www.theislamicmonthly.com. August 14, 2014.

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• Enthusiasm — real grassroots enthusiasm — trumps money, trumps endorsements, trumps everything.

  Eric Garcetti

  Real, Enthusiasm, Trump

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• My answer to those who oppose my appointment as CEO is that this is really a decision of the YWCA. They want to strengthen their grassroots to advocate on behalf of women's and children's empowerment and ending racism.

  Patricia Ireland

  Children, Racism, Decision

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• Punk rock really came out of N.Y. as a philosophy before the groups were ever recorded. I had a kind-of intellectual interest in the idea of creating a new scene that could be a grassroots thing.

  Greg Ginn

  Philosophy, Rocks, Ideas

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• During the summer of 2009, conservative activists turned up the heat on Democratic politicians to protest the innovation-destroying, liberty-usurping Obamacare mandate. In the summer of 2012, it's squishy Republican politicians who deserve the grassroots flames.

  Michelle Malkin

  Summer, Flames, Obamacare

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• About 70 percent of the district was new. It was a short amount of time to get to know hundreds and thousands of people. But with the help and support of old friends, we built a grassroots operation organically from the ground up.

  Adam Kinzinger

  Help And Support, People, Old Friends

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• I love being a part of something that is grassroots, and you can see the actual changes, the effect of what people do.

  Anthony Edwards

  Love Is, People, Effects

  "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. February 20, 2013.

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• The little grassroots people can change this world.

  Wangari Maathai

  People, World, Littles

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• It was truly an astonishing grassroots explosion, ... The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy.

  Gaylord Nelson

  Political, Environment, Explosions

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• The Sister Fund supports spiritual women and their organizations, both grassroots activists for justice, and national and international social change agents.

  Helen LaKelly Hunt

  Spiritual, Organization, Justice

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• I define democracy as control by the people. Slaves are those who allow others to control their lives. Insofar as people succeed in solving their problems fairly and efficiently at a grassroots level, they retain control over their lives. Insofar as they delegate their problem solving to a higher authority, they lose control over their lives.

  Peace Pilgrim

  People, Democracy, Levels

  Peace Pilgrim (1992). “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, p.120, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

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