Barbara Jordan Quotes

120 Barbara Jordan Quotes

1 2 3



There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.
Barbara Jordan

It does not matter where you came from, or who your parents were. What counts is who you are.
Barbara Jordan

Life is not a holiday but an education.
Barbara Jordan

One thing is clear to me: We as human beings must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.
Barbara Jordan

The imperative is to define what is right and do it.
Barbara Jordan

How to die, we got that. But we were missing how to live. I do not recall any message of joy or love or happiness generated out of this experience. It was a confining, restricting mandate. I do not feel free to do anything other than what was presented to me as the way one must proceed; that whatever you do in this life has to be in preparation for that other life. So on balance, my church relationship was, without doubt, a very imprisoning kind of experience.
Barbara Jordan

The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport.
Barbara Jordan

Throw away your crutches and quit complaining because you are black.
Barbara Jordan

We must exchange the philosophy of excuse – what I am is beyond my control – for the philosophy of responsibility.
Barbara Jordan

All my growth and development led me to believe that if you really do the right thing, and if you play by the rules, that you’re going to be able to do whatever you want to do with your life.
Barbara Jordan



As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.
Barbara Jordan

Each generation leaves a legacy to succeeding generations…
Barbara Jordan

I would have to work harder, and study longer, than anybody else.
Barbara Jordan

It occurred to me that if I was going to succeed at this strange new adventure, I would have to read longer and more thoroughly than my colleagues at law school had to read.
Barbara Jordan

Life is too large to hang out a sign: ‘For Men Only.’
Barbara Jordan

Don’t call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.
Barbara Jordan

Just remember the world is not a playground but a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love.
Barbara Jordan

I live a day at a time. Each day I look for a kernel of excitement. In the morning I say: ‘What is my exciting thing for today?’ Then, I do the day. Don’t ask me about tomorrow.
Barbara Jordan

The challenge facing us is to equip ourselves that we will be able to take our place wherever we are in the affairs of men.
Barbara Jordan

And now we must look to the future. Let us heed the voice of the people and recognize their common sense. If we do not, we not only blaspheme our political heritage, we ignore the common ties that bind all Americans.
Barbara Jordan



Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment.
Barbara Jordan

We, the people. It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787 I was not included in that ‘We, the people.’ I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’
Barbara Jordan

I have faith in young people because I know the strongest emotions which prevail are those of love and caring and belief and tolerance.
Barbara Jordan

If you're going to play the game properly you'd better know every rule.
Barbara Jordan

I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person.
Barbara Jordan

One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love.
Barbara Jordan

If you are politically inclined you may be President of the United States.
Barbara Jordan

My faith in the constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total.
Barbara Jordan

To make what in essence is one long legal argument flow like poetry and sing like a song is almost impossible.
Barbara Jordan

When do any of us do enough?
Barbara Jordan



[On being asked how the black female politician from the state’s most segregated neighborhood was fitting in] As it turned out, the Capitol stayed on its foundation and the star didn’t fall off the top.
Barbara Jordan

My faith in the constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to set here and be an idle spectator to the dominion, the subversion, the destruction of the constitution…
Barbara Jordan

Today I am an inquisitor. I believe hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now.
Barbara Jordan

The framers of this constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judges the same persons.
Barbara Jordan

[On her presence as a black politician at New York’s Madison Square Garden] My presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American dream need not forever be deferred.
Barbara Jordan

By the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good… the American idea, thought it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us…
Barbara Jordan

There is no executive order, there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals. And if we do it as individuals, there is no president of the United States who can veto that decision.
Barbara Jordan

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference is no democracy.
Barbara Jordan

If there are any patriots left in this country, then I am one.
Barbara Jordan

I am neither a black politician nor a female politician. Just a politician. A professional politician.
Barbara Jordan



1 2 3


Return from Barbara Jordan Quotes to Quoteswise.com