Quotes About Jesse Jackson

#1. One thing of the many things that I know about Jesse Jackson, he is persistent.

Jackie Jackson

#2. I'm in show business ... I want to hang out with Janet Jackson, not Jesse Jackson.

Chris Rock

#3. Jesse Jackson is a leader and a teacher who can open our hearts and open our minds and stir our very souls.

Ann Richards

#4. If Barack Obama now, or some black person in the future, should become president, neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton would be out of a job. A black president can't end black misery; a black president can't be a civil rights leader or primarily a crusader for racial justice.

Michael Eric Dyson

#5. I know Reverend Jesse Jackson is controversial, and not a popular figure with many, but he hired me in 1984. He gave me my first job in politics.

Donna Brazile

#6. Great things happen in small places. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Jesse Jackson was born in Greenville.

Jesse Jackson

#7. Reverend Jesse Jackson, President-for-Life of the People's Republic of Himself.

Mark Steyn

#8. I'm sure you know by now, Jesse Jackson was overheard saying, and I'll put this more delicately, that he wanted to cut Barack Obama's testicles off. And Jesse has been on several news programs the last couple of days, explaining what he meant by those comments. Do you need to explain that?

Jay Leno

#9. Tennis legend Bjorn Borg appeared in a Swedish TV ad urging Swedes to have more sex to solve the country's falling birth rate. America can help. This is a perfect opportunity to name Jesse Jackson ambassador to Sweden.

Argus Hamilton

#10. You know, Jesse Jackson is just trying to stir up a hornet's nest.

Kenneth Blackwell

#11. Here comes Jesse Jackson, he talks of common ground. Does that common ground include me, or is it just a sound?

Lou Reed

#12. Jesse Jackson was spending time with his family, or families.

P. J. O'Rourke

#13. You know, people'd always ask 'Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?' They never seen the house I'm running from.

Jesse Jackson

#14. Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?

Rush Limbaugh

#15. I guess we didn't even officially apologize. Jesse Jackson called on the United States to officially apologize to the Chinese. Jesse said, 'An apology is not a sign of weakness.' And as President Clinton has taught us, an apology isn't even a sign you're sorry.

Jay Leno

#16. Jesse Jackson's in trouble. They're going after this tax thing. Jesse said he will amend his taxes to show the money that he paid to his mistress. See, he has just one mistress. Jesse uses the standard mistress deduction. As opposed to Clinton, who had to itemize.

Jay Leno

#17. Jesse Jackson has to get back to "I am somebody" instead of "I am some color."

Ernest Hollings

#18. I have very mixed feelings about Jesse Jackson. He's very good about labor, and human and civil rights issues, but not so good on cultural issues.

Jello Biafra

#19. He was tenser than Jesse Jackson on Father's Day.

Scott Adams

#20. Jesse Jackson's living depends on the maintenance of an African-American victim culture

Mark Steyn

#21. I injured myself politically when I took on Jesse Jackson' in the 1988 presidential campaign. I was too strident. I didn't recognize the emotional tie that he had with all black voters.

Ed Koch

#22. If children could vote, Jesse Jackson would be our next president.

Fred Allen

#23. The difference between me and them is that I'll look at Jesse Jackson and I'll see four Jesse Jacksons, and they'll just see one, the clown ambulance chaser.

Chris Matthews

#24. Following revelations that he fathered a love child, the good Reverend Jesse Jackson - or should we say the 'very' good Reverend - is enduring the scandal with the help of family and friends. A scandal which gives clearer meaning to the Rainbow Coalition's Operation 'Push'.

Jon Stewart

#25. Jesse Jackson's wife was arrested in Puerto Rico while protesting the naval bombings there. Jesse said he was holding a meeting with four of his secretaries to decide what to do and that these meetings could run well into the night.

Jay Leno

#26. It has always been an irony to me that the 'religious right' has come under so much attack for being involved in politics when the black community has been doing it for hundreds of years. The Reverend Jesse Jackson is rarely, if ever, attacked for his involvement in politics.

Kay Coles James

#27. I don't want everyone to think of me as just 'that kid who called Jesse Jackson a communist in middle school.' That's why I decided to become a famous actress.

Evangeline Lilly

#28. Jesse Jackson also said he thought Barack Obama was talking down to black people by lecturing them on things like fatherhood and being a responsible husband. Jesse thought it was insulting, not only to him, but to his former mistress and their love child.

Jay Leno

#29. I was proud to march beside some of the most notable Civil Rights activists, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., from Selma to Montgomery.

Charles B. Rangel

#30. I'm not just gonna go after the black Jesse Jackson they all want to make fun of, but I know the wrong people are gonna laugh at that. I don't want to play to that crowd. I don't.

Chris Matthews

#31. I sound like Jesse Jackson or Martin Luther King, but I honestly feel like the world is mature enough. And, for me, I just want to do good roles.

Marlon Wayans

#32. The [Elian] raid ... was almost worth it, if only to watch Jesse Jackson ... defending an armed pre-dawn raid by the US government on a minority household.

Rich Galen

#33. Jesse Jackson and Al Not-So-Sharpton would be lisping their ebonic mumbo-jumbo that the policy and the president are racist and bigoted.

Ted Nugent

#34. Jesse Jackson was involved in a three-car crash this weekend. I understand that no one was hurt, but I understand that two of the women in the other cars are now pregnant.

Jay Leno

#35. Jesse Jackson, when I met him, he had an innocence about him which is still very much a part of him today.

Jackie Jackson

#36. I find Jesse Jackson to be religiously, progressively old fashioned.

Jackie Jackson

#37. When I used to work for Reverend Jesse Jackson he would say, "You've got to know the rules in order to break the rules." The 1988 campaign of Reverend Jesse Jackson made fundamental changes to the way Democrats do business.

Leah D. Daughtry

#38. There was a rumor that Jesse Jackson was going to go over there to talk with the Taliban, apparently they were having trouble rhyming the word Jihad.

Jay Leno

#39. Workers, black and white, need some kind of international affirmative action to protect them from unfair competition with unorganized or slave labor abroad and unfair competition with robots at home.

Jesse Jackson

#40. If you wear a hoodie but aren't registered to vote, you got the symbolism but missed the substance.

Jesse Jackson

#41. Don't look down on somebody unless you are helping them up.

Jesse Jackson

#42. In tough economic times, desperate people do desperate things, and the abortion rate goes up.

Jesse Jackson

#43. Humanitarian appeals always help. They penetrate deeper than political tradeoffs.

Jesse Jackson

#44. We picked their cotton. We cooked their food. We nursed their babies. Now we can run their cities. We can run their states. We will run the country.

Jesse Jackson

#45. I must oppose the use of federal funds for a policy of killing infants.

Jesse Jackson

#46. Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

Jesse Jackson

#47. We went across the South on Super Tuesday without a single catcall or boo, without a single ugly sign. Not until we got to New York and the North did the litmus test of race and religion spout from the mouths of public officials.

Jesse Jackson

#48. In order for an ideal to become a reality, there must be a person, a personality to translate it.

Jesse Jackson

#49. A man must be willing to die for ...

Jesse Jackson

#50. Abortion is black genocide ... What happens to the mind of a person and the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience?

Jesse Jackson

#51. Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

Jesse Jackson

#52. Everywhere I go, kids walk around not with books under their arms, but with radios up against their heads. Children can't read or write, but they can memorize whole albums.

Jesse Jackson

#53. I'm too mature to be angry.

Jesse Jackson

#54. The coffers are full of money and equipment for the Ferguson Police and the Missouri National Guard to put down a potential uprising, but no money for actually uplifting the people of Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri and around the nation.

Jesse Jackson

#55. Fighting disparities is very significant.

Jesse Jackson

#56. George Bush has met more foreign heads of state than I have. But a substantial number of them were dead.

Jesse Jackson

#57. People always grow and mature.

Jesse Jackson

#58. I was extended secret service protection during my presidential run in 1984, when I received the most death threats ever made toward a candidate.

Jesse Jackson

#59. If a black doctor discovers a cure for cancer, ain't no hospital going to lock him out.

Jesse Jackson

#60. If my mind can conceive it,
My heart can believe it,
I know I can achieve it!

Jesse Jackson

#61. I take my role seriously as a pastor.

Jesse Jackson

#62. When we're unemployed, we're called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it's called a depression.

Jesse Jackson

#63. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.

Jesse Jackson

#64. Has done a great job walking a thin line between revenge and remedy.

Jesse Jackson

#65. We must give the American worker the first option of ownership.

Jesse Jackson

#66. It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.

Jesse Jackson

#67. I came to the conclusion that in order to end racial barriers, I needed to run for the office of the president and put forth an agenda of social justice and world peace. In addition, I concluded that someone needed to run and challenge the liberal orthodoxy.

Jesse Jackson

#68. The solution [to a crisis pregnancy] is not to kill the innocent baby but to deal with the mother's values and her attitudes toward life.

Jesse Jackson

#69. The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.

Jesse Jackson Jr.

#70. The invasion only made matters worse. The occupation will not work, Iraq is unoccupiable, that will not work.

Jesse Jackson

#71. I had gained a greater appreciation of hearing the concerns of woman, doctors, and so many others.

Jesse Jackson

#72. When everyone is included, everyone wins.

Jesse Jackson

#73. Capitalism without capital is just an ism.

Jesse Jackson

#74. When blacks are unemployed, they are considered lazy and apathetic. When whites are unemployed, it's considered a depression.

Jesse Jackson

#75. God doesn't make orange juice, God makes oranges.

Jesse Jackson

#76. The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.

Jesse Jackson

#77. Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.

Jesse Jackson

#78. If the states had to vote on slavery, we would have lost the vote.

Jesse Jackson

#79. We need a regime change in this country ... If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority.

Jesse Jackson

#80. Unfortunate. Unfortunate. Sometimes people struggling for freedom lose their way.

Jesse Jackson

#81. Your children need your presence more than your presents.

Jesse Jackson

#82. Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters.

Jesse Jackson

#83. It's not logical that we boast the most advanced and powerful internationally integrated economy in the world, then claim organizational incompetence and poverty when it comes to creating and funding a national health care system for all Americans.

Jesse Jackson Jr.

#84. Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

Jesse Jackson

#85. If you don't feel apologetic for slavery, if you don't feel apologetic for colonialism, if you feel proud of it then say that.

Jesse Jackson

#86. When God rang the bell that ended the fight, the world cried out for one more round.

Jesse Jackson

#87. We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch, in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run, in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in.

Jesse Jackson

#88. For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

Jesse Jackson

#89. No one wants to see self-destructive riots because there's no future in riots.

Jesse Jackson

#90. Iraq will drive American agenda for a long time because Iraq policy has so damaged America in the Middle East region, left us isolated. We are there now by brute strength, we are not there because we are desired.

Jesse Jackson

#91. If you run, you might lose. If you don't run, you're guaranteed to lose.

Jesse Jackson

#92. If you don't know what tomorrow holds, you need to know who holds tomorrow!

Jesse Jackson

#93. We live on the dash between our birth date and our death date.

Jesse Jackson

#94. I am - Somebody. I may be poor, but I am - Somebody! I may be on welfare, but I am - Somebody! I may be uneducated, but I am - Somebody! I must be, I'm God's child. I must be respected and protected. I am black and I am beautiful! I am - Somebody! Soul Power!

Jesse Jackson

#95. When it came to the division of power, we did not get from the Jews the slice of cake we deserved ... the Jews do not share with us control of wealth, broadcasting stations and other centers of power.

Jesse Jackson

#96. That's all Hymie wants to talk about is Israel. Every time you go to Hymietown that's all they want to talk about.

Jesse Jackson

#97. At the end of the day, we're defined by our predicament, not by the sides of town.

Jesse Jackson

#98. When journalists and politicians speak of a dwindling middle class that's under economic assault and a poor community that's getting bigger, they're talking about Ferguson. Independent of the racial demographics and dynamics of Ferguson, Missouri, there's a 'Ferguson' near you.

Jesse Jackson

#99. Each time a barrier falls for one person, the doors of opportunity open wider for every other American.

Jesse Jackson

#100. When you create more small businesses, you create small entrepreneurship. Out of that comes self-determination and employment.

Jesse Jackson