Barbara Jordan Quotes

56 Sourced Quotes

What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise.

Barbara Jordan
We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic. There is no way to improve upon that. But what we can do is to find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.

Barbara Jordan
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
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
We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.

Barbara Jordan
Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

Barbara Jordan
We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation... but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America.

Barbara Jordan
We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that.

Barbara Jordan
It is not enough to say "right on, brother" or "we shall overcome".... You must become part of the decision-making process.

Barbara Jordan
A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.

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
I am a born optimist. I find that if you just cut off the layers, the rhetoric, the superficiality, and get to the inner core — the heart — that you will find a responsible human being.

Barbara Jordan
It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

Barbara Jordan
I believe that I have a spirit that is not going to disappear. That my body will die and disintegrate, but there is that basic law of physics, that matter is neither created nor destroyed. Now the skin and bones will go back to dust, but the spirit of that individual, the presence of "isness" of me, I feel will live.

Barbara Jordan
You must understand that I have a tremendous faith in my own capacity.

Barbara Jordan
If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.

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
Earlier today we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States. '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
We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.

Barbara Jordan
I'm not long on patience. Sometimes I'm more abrupt with people than I ought to be. I always regret it afterward.

Barbara Jordan
Our concept of governing is derived from our view of people. It is a concept deeply rooted in a set of beliefs firmly etched in the national conscience, of all of us.

Barbara Jordan
We want to be in control of our lives. Whether we are jungle fighters, craftsmen, company men, gamesmen, we want to be in control. And when the government erodes that control, we are not comfortable.

Barbara Jordan
There is a part of my who enjoys to speak when I have something to day. And if I don't have anything that I feel needs to be said, then I don't say it.

Barbara Jordan
But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.

Barbara Jordan
Even as I stand here and admit that we have made mistakes I still believe that as the people of America sit in judgment on each party, they will recognize that our mistakes were mistakes of the heart. They'll recognize that.

Barbara Jordan
If you had to work in the environment of Washington, D.C., as I do, and watch those men who are so imprisoned and so confined by their eighteenth-century thought patterns, you would know that if anybody is going to be liberated, it's men who must be liberated in this country.

Barbara Jordan
We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.

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

Barbara Jordan
In other times, I could stand here and give this kind of exposition on the beliefs of the Democratic Party and that would be enough. But today that is not enough. People want more.

Barbara Jordan
"We, the people." It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, 1 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