Top 50 Paul Wellstone Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “We all do better, when we all do better.”

— Paul Wellstone

2. “The future will not belong to those who sit on the sidelines. The future will not belong to the cynics. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

— Paul Wellstone

3. “Let there be no distance between the words you say and the life you live.”

— Paul Wellstone

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4. “The future will belong to those who have passion and are willing to work hard to make our country better.”

— Paul Wellstone

5. “Politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.”

— Paul Wellstone

6. “If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them.”

— Paul Wellstone

7. “Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives.”

— Paul Wellstone

8. “Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives. It’s about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and the world. Politics is about doing well for the people.”

— Paul Wellstone

9. “Sometimes, the only realists are the dreamers.”

— Paul Wellstone

10. “The only way to change is to vote. People are responsible.”

— Paul Wellstone

11. “I don’t think politics has anything to do with left, right, or center. It has to do with trying to do right by people.”

— Paul Wellstone

12. “Education and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible development of human capabilities.”

— Paul Wellstone

13. “Never separate the life you lead from the words you speak.”

— Paul Wellstone

14. “I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.”

— Paul Wellstone

15. “We can remake the world daily.”

— Paul Wellstone

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

— Paul Wellstone

17. “What makes community organizing especially attractive is the faith it places in the ability of the poor to make decisions for themselves.”

— Paul Wellstone

18. “We must regain our vision and hope and move our country forward on an agenda of peace and justice.”

— Paul Wellstone

19. “I saw as a teacher how, if you take that spark of learning that those children have, and you ignite it, you can take a child from any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment.”

— Paul Wellstone

20. “As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level.”

— Paul Wellstone

21. “I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power.”

— Paul Wellstone

22. “The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.”

— Paul Wellstone

23. “The best kind of politics is when you help people become their own best selves.”

— Paul Wellstone

24. “I’m short, I’m Jewish and I’m a liberal.”

— Paul Wellstone

25. “If a teacher does not involve himself, his values, his commitments, in the course of discussion, why should the students?”

— Paul Wellstone

26. “There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.”

— Paul Wellstone

27. “Above and beyond the question of how to grow the economy there is a legitimate concern about how to grow the quality of our lives.”

— Paul Wellstone

28. “I was talking about no nukes, the farm crisis. People said that wasn’t stuff that a state auditor was supposed to be talking about. Maybe they were right.”

— Paul Wellstone

29. “Why don’t we call on the credit card companies to be accountable? They need to be held accountable for their predatory lending practices.”

— Paul Wellstone

30. “The Democratic Party has lost much of it credibility with working class and low-income people. It retards progress toward presenting a genuine alternative.”

— Paul Wellstone

31. “Successful organizing is based on the recognition that people get organized because they, too, have a vision.”

— Paul Wellstone

32. “It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics.”

— Paul Wellstone

33. “Our politics are our deepest form of expression: they mirror our past experiences and reflect our dreams and aspirations for the future.”

— Paul Wellstone

34. “When too many Americans don’t vote or participate, some see apathy and despair. I see disappointment and even outrage. And I believe that out of this frustration can come hope and action.”

— Paul Wellstone

35. “A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people’s lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.”

— Paul Wellstone

36. “The problem with party politics is that people get involved every two or four years and that is it. In the meantime, the legislature and Minnesota politics are on a separate track.”

— Paul Wellstone

37. “We must renew democracy itself. We have to fight cynicism and inertia and restore faith in the advancement of our country.”

— Paul Wellstone

38. “Successful organizing is not built on self-interest but rather on dignity and a sense of purpose.”

— Paul Wellstone

39. “We’re not going to have real security until we invest in our children.”

— Paul Wellstone

40. “Politics is not about power.”

— Paul Wellstone

41. “The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society.”

— Paul Wellstone

42. “Traditional progressive bread and butter economic issues are the heart of the solution. It’s about ensuring decent jobs with a good wage. It’s about ensuring a free public education in all the communities of America, whether they are in the shiny new affluent suburbs or the crumbling old schools of the older suburbs and cities. It’s about ensuring a system where all Americans have access to health care, instead of a steadily declining share of our population.”

— Paul Wellstone

43. “The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.”

— Paul Wellstone

44. “I think the future also will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines.”

— Paul Wellstone

45. “There is a major ingredient missing from our perception of how changes are brought about; that ingredient is power.”

— Paul Wellstone

46. “Without trying, I’m different.”

— Paul Wellstone

47. “Our aims in political activism are not, and should not be, to create a perfect utopia.”

— Paul Wellstone

48. “The kind of national goal we ought to be thinking about is way beyond national product – it is how do we as a nation help our children be the best kinds of people they could possibly be?”

— Paul Wellstone

49. “What the poor, the weak, and the inarticulate desperately require is power, organization, and a sense of identity and purpose, not rarefied advice of political scientists.”

— Paul Wellstone

50. “The people of this country, not special interest big money, should be the source of all political power.”

— Paul Wellstone