Shirley Chisholm Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Leadership, Voice, Lists

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Inspiring, Earth, Pay

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Inspiring, Ideas, African American

  251 Copy quote

• When I die, I want to be remembered as a woman who lived in the twentieth century and who dared to be a catalyst of change. I don't want to be remembered as the first black woman who went to Congress. And I don't even want to be remembered as the first woman who happened to be black to make a bid for the Presidency I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the twentieth century. That's what I want.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Black, Want, Firsts

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Black, Female, Social Justice

  Shirley Chisholm (1970). “Unbought and Unbossed”

  184 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Defeat, Discouragement, Stimulus

  168 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  People, Too Much, Way

  123 Copy quote

• 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

  Mother, Father, Rights

  Congressional Record, 91st Cong., 2d Sess, 116, pt. 21: (28028-28029), August 10, 1970.

  153 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Running, Odds, Voice

  "The Good Fight". Book by Shirley Chisholm, 1973.

  174 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Care, Privilege, Health Care

  142 Copy quote

• I am and always will be a catalyst for change.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Catalyst For Change, Catalyst

  117 Copy quote

• 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.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Heart, Law, Prejudice

  "For the Equal Rights Amendment". Shirley Chisholm's speech in Washington, D.C., www.americanrhetoric.com. August 10, 1970.

  147 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Country, Racism, Justice

  Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.147, Take Root Media

  86 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Men, Black, Discrimination

  152 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Revolution, Evolution, Revolutionary

  156 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Our Society, Skirts, Losing

  Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.92, Take Root Media

  136 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  America

  79 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Country, Determination, Needs

  111 Copy quote

• I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. 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 think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Thinking, Years, Black

  Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.19, Take Root Media

  37 Copy quote

• 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.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Heart, Justice For All, Law

  Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.106, Take Root Media

  86 Copy quote

• Rhetoric never won a revolution yet.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Revolution, Rhetoric

  26 Copy quote

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

  Shirley Chisholm

  Integrity, Patriotic, Power

  Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.124, Take Root Media

  101 Copy quote

• My God, what do we want? What does any human being want? Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Differences, Justice, Skins

  Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.148, Take Root Media

  26 Copy quote

• It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Sports, Baseball, Football

  88 Copy quote

• Most Americans have never seen the ignorance, degradation, hunger, sickness, and futility in which many other Americans live...They won't become involved in economic or political change until something brings the seriousness of the situation home to them.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Home, Ignorance, Political

  40 Copy quote

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