"There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price."
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Quote collection
Shirley Chisholm quotes (page 3 of 4)
63 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference between open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians."
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"Some members of Congress are among the best actors in the world."
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"As a black person I am no stranger to prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far more often discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black."
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"As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts."
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"Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men."
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"Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power."
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"I was well on the way to forming my present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States; it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gelded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own: their votes. And who benefits the most? The lawyers."
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"I don’t measure America by its achievement but by its potential."
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"Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something."
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"Which is more like genocide, I have asked some of my black brothers - this, the way things are, or the conditions I am fighting for in which the full range of family planning services is available to women of all classes and colors, starting with effective contraception and extending to safe, legal terminations of undesired pregnancies at a price they can afford?"
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"Some fine men are in Congress, too few, trying to do a responsible job. But they are surrounded and almost neutralized by a greater number whose instinct is to make a deal before they make a decision."
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"One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she's probably a lesbian."
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"The minorities have been confined to the city by a moat of bigotry."
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"We Americans have a chance to become someday a nation in which all racial stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically."
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"We have been so patient and loyal ... and what has it gotten us? We want our full share now."
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"I am not antiwhite, because I understand that white people, like black ones, are victims of a racist society. They are products of their time and place."
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"To label family planning and legal abortion programs "genocide" is male rhetoric, for male ears."
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"Of my two `handicaps,' being female put more obstacles in my path than being black."
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"Women know, and so do many men, that two or three children who are wanted, prepared for, reared amid love and stability, and educated to the limit of their ability will mean more for the future of the black and brown races from which they come than any number of neglected, hungry, ill-housed and ill-clothed youngsters. Pride in one's race, as will simple humanity, supports this view."
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