Bella Abzug Quotes

There are those who say I’m impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash, and overbearing. Whether I’m any of those things, or all of them, you can decide for yourself. But whatever I am — and this ought to be made very clear — I am a very serious woman.

The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes.

The inside operation of Congress – the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building – is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.

the women’s movement, not only here in the U.S., but worldwide, is bigger and stronger than ever before and in places where it has never been. It has arms. It has legs. And most importantly, it has heads.

Never go back, never apologize, and never forget we’re half the human race.

When I was a young lawyer, working women wore hats. It was the only way they would take you seriously.

I am not elevating women to sainthood, nor am I suggesting that all women share the same views, or that all women are good and all men bad.

If we get a government that reflects more of what this country is really about, we can turn the century – and the economy – around.

I’ve been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prize fighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy.

In Britain the government has to come down in front of Parliament every day to explain its actions, but here the President never answers directly to Congress.