Barbara Jordan quotes

Barbara Jordan was an influential American politician and civil rights leader from Texas. Renowned for her powerful oratory, she played a key role in the Watergate hearings and championed social justice causes. She broke barriers as the first Southern African-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Here are 51 of her quotes:

What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise. (Barbara Jordan)

There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.

Barbara Jordan

One thing is clear to me: We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.

Barbara Jordan

We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.

Barbara Jordan

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.

Barbara Jordan

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.

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

A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.

Barbara Jordan

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.

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

Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment. (Barbara Jordan)

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

Barbara Jordan

The imperative is to define what is right and do it.

Barbara Jordan

More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.

Barbara Jordan

Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It's tough, difficult, not easy. But a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny.

Barbara Jordan

I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it.

Barbara Jordan

If you're going to play the game properly, you'd better know every rule.

Barbara Jordan

We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.

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

If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If we as public officials propose, we must produce.

Barbara Jordan

We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community. (Barbara Jordan)

It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

Barbara Jordan

A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.

Barbara Jordan

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.

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

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Barbara Jordan

Barbara Jordan - Image

Occupation: American Politician
Born: February 21, 1936
Died: January 17, 1996
Quotes count: 51

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