Top 76 Barbara Jordan Quotes
#1. A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.
Barbara Jordan
#2. We believe in equality for all, and privileges for none. This is a belief that each American regardless of background has equal standing in the public forum, all of us. Because we believe this idea so firmly, we are an inclusive, rather than an exclusive party. Let everybody come.
Barbara Jordan
#3. One thing is very clear: Illegal immigrants are not entitled to benefits.
Barbara Jordan
#4. We can certainly defuse the intensity of the anti-immigrant feeling if we can bring some reality to the discussion by showing that they are not using that many resources.
Barbara Jordan
#5. 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
#6. 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
#7. 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
#8. 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.
Barbara Jordan
#9. 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
#10. In other times, I could stand here and give this kind of exposition on the beliefs of the Democratic Party and that would be enough. But today that is not enough. People want more.
Barbara Jordan
#11. For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it.
Barbara Jordan
#12. It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
Barbara Jordan
#13. 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
#14. 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
#15. Justice of right is always to take precedence over might.
Barbara Jordan
#16. Our concept of governing is derived from our view of people. It is a concept deeply rooted in a set of beliefs firmly etched in the national conscience, of all of us.
Barbara Jordan
#17. We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that.
Barbara Jordan
#18. The imperative is to define what is right and do it.
Barbara Jordan
#19. Life is too large to hang out a sign: 'For Men Only.'
Barbara Jordan
#20. 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
#21. I live a day at a time. Each day I look for a kernel of excitement. In the morning, I say: 'What is my exciting thing for today?' Then, I do the day. Don't ask me about tomorrow.
Barbara Jordan
#22. 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
#23. I have faith in young people because I know the strongest emotions which prevail are those of love and caring and belief and tolerance.
Barbara Jordan
#24. The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.
Barbara Jordan
#26. What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.
Barbara Jordan
#27. 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.
Barbara Jordan
#28. We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation ... but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America.
Barbara Jordan
#29. I have confidence that we can form this kind of national community.
Barbara Jordan
#30. Throughout out history, when people have looked for new ways to solve their problems, and to uphold the principles of this nation, many times they have turned to political parties. They have often turned to the Democratic Party.
Barbara Jordan
#31. 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 Jordan
#32. 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
#33. If you're going to play the game properly you'd better know every rule.
Barbara Jordan
#34. 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
#35. 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
#38. Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment.
Barbara Jordan
#39. If 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.
Barbara Jordan
#40. 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
#41. The stakes ... are too high for government to be a spectator sport.
Barbara Jordan
#42. Fairness is an across-the-board requirement for all our interactions with each other ... Fairness treats everbody the same.
Barbara Jordan
#43. 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
#44. 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
#45. [It is] one of the most complex and emotional issues of out time.
Barbara Jordan
#46. It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.
Barbara Jordan
#49. Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.
Barbara Jordan
#50. 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
#51. We must have an economy that does not force the migrant worker's child to miss school in order to earn ... just so the family can eat. That is the moral bankruptcy that trickle-down economics is all about.
Barbara Jordan
#52. If you are dissatisfied with they way things are, then you have got to resolve to change them.
Barbara Jordan
#53. It is a privilege to serve people, a privilege that must be earned, and once earned, there is an obligation to do something good with it.
Barbara Jordan
#54. If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.
Barbara Jordan
#55. 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.
Barbara Jordan
#56. I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person.
Barbara Jordan
#57. We have made mistakes. In our haste to do all things for all people, we did not foresee the full consequences of our actions. And when the people raised their voices, we didn't hear. But our deafness was only a temporary condition, and not an irreversible condition.
Barbara Jordan
#58. I think it no accident that most of those emigrating to America in the 19th century identified with the Democratic Party. We are a heterogeneous party made up of Americans of diverse backgrounds.
Barbara Jordan
#59. We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.
Barbara Jordan
#60. 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
#61. Let us heed the voice of the people and recognize their common sense. If we do not, we not only blaspheme our political heritage, we ignore the common ties that bind all Americans.
Barbara Jordan
#62. For the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process.
Barbara Jordan
#63. 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
#64. 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
#65. All my growth and development led me to believe that if you really do the right thing, and if you play by the rules, and if you?ve got good enough, solid judgment and common sense, that you?re going to be able to do whatever you want to do with your life.
Barbara Jordan
#66. We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.
Barbara Jordan
#67. A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.
Barbara Jordan
#68. One thing is clear to me: we, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.
Barbara Jordan
#69. 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
#70. The Supreme Court has always been the last bastion of the protection of our freedoms.
Barbara Jordan
#71. For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.
Barbara Jordan
#72. How do we create a harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance
the one value that is indispensable in creating community.
Barbara Jordan
#73. Americanization means the process of becoming an American. It means civic incorporation, becoming a part of the polity - becoming one of us. But that does not mean conformity. We are more than a melting pot, we are a kaleidoscope, where every turn of history refracts new light on the old promise.
Barbara Jordan
#74. I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to, and that there are no limits, that you can just keep going, just keep soaring. I like that spirit.
Barbara Jordan
#75. If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If we as public officials propose, we must produce.
Barbara Jordan
#76. "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
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