Mobilizing Support Quotes

Did you think we are making a united front [with the Socialists] because we have suddenly been convinced that they are good class-conscious fighters, good leaders of the working class? … precisely the reason why we make the united front with them is because we have got to take their followers away from them.

You see, revolution sounds like something that happens, like turning on the light switch, but actually it's moving a large obstacle, and a lot of folks' efforts to push it in one direction or the other have to combine.

Try to rally up as many people as you can with as much information as you can to try to get it to appear in front of the right people in the organization who are the decision-makers to greenlight the project.

If you want to change something, you’ve got to go where the people are.

While you cannot deliver policies without principles, you cannot deliver principles without having power. You have quickly to move to a stage where, emphasising your principles, you build a programme, then call for popular support.

Nothing of any consequence happens unless people get behind an idea. It begins with an individual and they share the idea with more individuals-and eventually it becomes a movement.

It's not enough to raise awareness. You have to give people solutions, and you have to invite them to get involved in whatever way they can, whether that's doing volunteer work or taking a portion of their salary and figuring out where they want that money to go. You have to find ways to inspire people to get involved.

Social networking is playing a huge role in creating awareness and mobilizing support for all kinds of common interests. What better way to use this remarkable tool than to change the world?

Ordinary people like you and me can achieve very little on their own. We need to build support. Even if you are a thought leader and have some good ideas on how to make the world better, and even if you write five or ten books - that won't have much effect unless you have people who are willing to support your ideas.

When someone challenges you, your supporters turn out.

I ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And after all, that's what this is all about. It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power - it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope. You gotta give them hope.

It is very hard to enroll people in anything. And there is a very big difference between the words motivate and inspire.

If you care deeply about a cause and you are then engaged on behalf of that cause in an activity that makes you feel very good and very brave and you're really in solidarity with all your friends, and you're enjoying it, you're probably not advancing the cause very much, because you're spending all your time with people you agree with cheering each other on and not engaging.

We were very effective, and I was very effective, in shaping public opinion around my campaigns. But there were big stretches, while governing, where even though we were doing the right thing, we weren't able to mobilize public opinion firmly enough behind us to weaken the resolve of the Republicans to stop opposing us or to cooperate with us. And there were times during my presidency where I lost the PR battle.

John Gummer just did not have the political clout or credibility to rally the troops. I had appointed him as a sort of nightwatchman, but he seemed to have to sleep on the job.

A strategy would be how do we mobilize support for the remnants of the Syrian Free Army, and it might require combat troops to inspire an international effort.

Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, others, knew how to lead. They knew how to ask the American people for the right things.