Illinois quotes
89 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. -Speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854."
"To my great disappointment, it appears that the politics of division are making a big comeback. Many Americans share my disappointment - especially those who were filled with great hope a few years ago, when then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois."
"I grew up in central Illinois midway between Chicago and St. Louis and I made an historic blunder. All my friends became Cardinals fans and grew up happy and liberal and I became a Cubs fan and grew up embittered and conservative."
"Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death."
"Growing up on the border there, we were always frustrated with people's pronunciations of towns in Michigan, and people mispronouncing Illinois. There are all these Native American words that no one really knows how to pronounce."
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"People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a level of providence to his every decision but he was a cunning and calculating politician; from the cultivation of his image as a hayseed from Illinois, to his ability to keep this country together under dire circumstances."
"If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent."
"Although the only way that I'm well known at Illinois State is that I am the "grammar Nazi." And so any student whose deployment of a semi-colon is not absolutely Mozart-esque knows that they're going to get a C in my class, and so my classes tend to have like four students in them. It's really a lot of fun."
"As a youngster I worked the river boats going down the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, pushing barges to Chicago, then all the way down to New Orleans."
"National legislation will prevent other states' flawed concealed-weapons laws from threatening the safety of Illinois residents."
"There are some who might say that somebody named Barack Obama can't be elected senator in the state of Illinois. They're probably the same folks who said that a guy named Rod Blagojevich couldn't be elected governor of the state of Illinois."
"I hear you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, but we shot one the other day."
"Political leaders in Illinois kicked the can down the road, raised taxes, and ignored fiscal realities. Now, they're realizing the consequences of their actions: credit downgrades and negative outlooks."
"There could not be a more stark contrast between Wisconsin and Illinois."
"If I'd gotten the job I wanted at Montgomery Ward, I suppose I would never have left Illinois."
"Native Americans were driven off their land. Lincoln even took part in the Black Hawk campaign against the Native Americans in Illinois. While they were being exterminated and driven off their land, Whites were collecting assets."
"According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979."
