"I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential."

Shirley Chisholm Politics See all quotes by Shirley Chisholm →

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“The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers — a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.”

“Shirley Chisholm's 1972 Presidential Campaign”

“Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.”

“Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time. Even when the problems it ignores build up to crises and erupt in strikes, riots, and demonstrations, it has not moved. Its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.”

“Before Hillary Clinton, there was Shirley Chisholm", Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News”

“Shirley Chisholm's Unbought and Unbossed book web site by editor Scot Simpson”

Resonant Thoughts

"Little more than 100 weeks ago I assumed the office of President of the United States. In seeking the help of the Congress and our countrymen, I pledged no easy answers. I pledged — and asked — only t…"

— John F. Kennedy

Politics

#Human Nature

"Jeffersonian isolationism expressed an essentially cosmopolitan spirit. The Jeffersonian was determined — even at the expense of separating himself from the rest of the globe, and even though he be ch…"

— Daniel J. Boorstin

Literature1914–2004

#friendship

"The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the de…"

— Carl Schmitt

Literature1888–1985

#hope