“The world is run by those who show up”
Filmmaker Woody Allen said in 1977: “Showing up is 80 percent of life.”
“The world is run by those who show up” has been a slogan of many political activists, recorded in print since 1987. The author of the slogan is unknown. Variants of the saying include “The government/country/nation is run by those who show up.”
Google Books
The Yale Book of Quotations
Edited by Fred R. Shapiro
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
2006
Pg. 17:
Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg)
U.S. comedian and filmmaker, 1935-
“Showing up is 80 percent of life.”
Quoted in N.Y. Times, 23 Aug. 1977.
Northern Sun
Get involved. The world is run by those who show up.
(Bumper Sticker)
4 August 1987, Frederick (MD) Post, “Chamber action in August,” pg. B6, col. 2:
REMEMBER: The biggest mistake you can make is to believe that you are working for someone else! The world is run by those who show up.
2 July 1988, St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press, pg. 7A:
The nation is run by those who show up. Or so the saying goes.
30 April 1990, Minneapolis (MN) Star-Tribune, “Legislators say farewell”:
“My advice to voters is to seek somebody who is honest and a worker, because the world is run by those who show up.” Sen. Clarence Purfeerst, DFL-Faribault.
Google News Archive
20 November 1991, Wilmington (NC) Morning Star, “Groups rally against wetland rules” by Janet Olson, pg. B1, col. 3:
“Someone told me recently that the state is run by those who show up, so I would urge you to attend public hearings,” said Zach Taylor, president of the N.C. Landowners Association.
Google Books
Interest group politics in the midwestern states
By Ronald J. Hrebenar and Clive S. Thomas
Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press
1993
Pg. 162:
The effectiveness of labor, business, and certain issue groups is testimony to this fact. As a professional lobbyist remarked, “The world is run by those who show up.”
14 July 1993, North Island Gazette (Port Hardy, BC), pg. 3, col. 1:
“It’s very important that we sit on our hands,” said Port McNeill mayor Gerry Furney after the vote. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the world is run by those who show up.”
OCLC WorldCat record
LEADERSHIP: THE WORLD IS RUN BY THOSE WHO SHOW UP
Author: Richard G Weingardt
Publisher: [New York, N.Y.] : American Society of Civil Engineers, Engineering Management Division, c1985-
Edition/Format: Article : English
Publication: Journal of management in engineering. 13, no. 4, (1997): 61
Database: ArticleFirst
Google Books
The effective school leader’s guide to management
By Jane L. Sigford
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press
2006
Pg. 160:
The old saying, “The world is run by those who show up,” is a parallel to the fact that too often the world is run by those who SPEAK up.
Serving Justice
The world is run by those who show up
January 30, 2009
Posted by: justiceserved in Court Management, Human Resources, Personal
The saying the world is run by those who show up is attributed variously to anonymous sources or to an engineering expert, Robert B. Johnson, in an article in the Journal of Management in Engineering (Jan/Feb 1999 — Volume 15, Issue 1, pp. 90-92). It succinctly describes what most of us observe in our personal and work lives … that people tend to fall into two groups: those who are disengaged from the world around them or who are active participants trying to shape the future.