Let’s all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.
BARBARA JORDANWe 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.
More Barbara Jordan Quotes
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Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment.
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We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.
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If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If we as public officials propose, we must produce.
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The majority of the American people still believe that every single individual in this country is entitled to just as much respect, just as much dignity, as every other individual.
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What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.
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I have faith in young people because I know the strongest emotions which prevail are those of love and caring and belief and tolerance.
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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.
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What the people want is very simple – they want an America as good as its promise.
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Life is too large to hang out a sign: ‘For Men Only.
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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.’
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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.
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Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
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Just remember the world is not a playground but a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love.
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But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.
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“We, the people.” It is a very elegant beginning. But when that document was completed on the 17th of September in 1787, I was not included in that “We, the people.”
BARBARA JORDAN