If you are dissatisfied with they way things are, then you have got to resolve to change them.
BARBARA JORDANIf you had to work in the environment of Washington, D.C., as I do, and watch those men who are so imprisoned and so confined by their eighteenth-century thought patterns, you would know that if anybody is going to be liberated, it’s men who must be liberated in this country.
More Barbara Jordan Quotes
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The stakes … are too high for government to be a spectator sport.
BARBARA JORDAN -
Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.
BARBARA JORDAN -
Life is too large to hang out a sign: ‘For Men Only.
BARBARA JORDAN -
I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’
BARBARA JORDAN -
What the people want is very simple – they want an America as good as its promise.
BARBARA JORDAN -
A spirit of harmony can only survive if each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.
BARBARA JORDAN -
Even as I stand here and admit that we have made mistakes I still believe that as the people of America sit in judgment on each party, they will recognize that our mistakes were mistakes of the heart. They’ll recognize that.
BARBARA JORDAN -
I have confidence that we can form this kind of national community.
BARBARA JORDAN -
Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.
BARBARA JORDAN -
There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.
BARBARA JORDAN -
We want to be in control of our lives. Whether we are jungle fighters, craftsmen, company men, gamesmen, we want to be in control. And when the government erodes that control, we are not comfortable.
BARBARA JORDAN -
We are a heterogeneous party made up of Americans of diverse backgrounds.
BARBARA JORDAN -
Things which matter cost money, and we’ve got to spend the money if we do not want to have generations of parasites rather than generations of productive citizens.
BARBARA JORDAN -
We call ourselves public servants but I’ll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.
BARBARA JORDAN -
We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic. There is no way to improve upon that. But what we can do is to find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.
BARBARA JORDAN