Shirley Chisholm Quotes

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.

Don't list to those who say YOU CAN'T. Listen to the voice inside yourself that says, I CAN.

Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.

In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.

I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.

Defeat should not be the source of discouragement, but a stimulus to keep plotting.

Women must become revolutionary. This cannot be evolution but revolution.

I've always met more discrimination being a woman than being Black...men are men.

Laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.

Health is a human right, not a privilege to be purchased.

Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.

I have never cared too much what people say. What I am interested in is what they do.

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.'

I am and always will be a catalyst for change.

At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity.

Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

I love America not for what she is, but for what she can become.

There is a good deal of evidence that the United States is moving to the right, and that the main force behind the movement is a resurgence, in a new form, of racial prejudice.

My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency.

Racism keeps people who are being managed from finding out the truth through contact with each other.

Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time... its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.

Be as bold as the first man or [woman] to eat an oyster.

That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions.

Rhetoric never won a revolution yet.

... all Americans are the prisoners of racial prejudice.

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.

Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.

Some members of Congress are among the best actors in the world.

As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts.

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.

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power.

I don’t measure America by its achievement but by its potential.

Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.

The minorities have been confined to the city by a moat of bigotry.

We have been so patient and loyal ... and what has it gotten us? We want our full share now.

To label family planning and legal abortion programs "genocide" is male rhetoric, for male ears.

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.

Of my two 'handicaps,' being female put more obstacles in my path than being black.

I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.

I had met far more discrimination because I am a woman than because I am black.

My God, what do we want? What does any human being want?

Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread, and deep-seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

It is not female egotism to say that the future of mankind may very well be ours to determine. It is a fact.

If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.

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.

Of my two 'handicaps' being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.

I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.