Carl Rowan Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.

Carl Rowan
Our country is wallowing in a miasma of political and class conflict, of greed and special interest, with regard to budget deficits, inflation and rising unemployment, the threats of both a bloody war and a devastating recession. How did we get into this mess? Because the press, during the 1980s committed one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. The media took a dive, caved in, and did not tell the American people the price they would eventually pay for Reaganomics.

Carl Rowan
You don't really talk about it in terms of the U.N., you talk about it in terms of the United States and the Soviet Union. If you cannot, by diplomacy, bring the Soviet Union into an alliance with the U.S. to stop this situation it is not going to be stopped.

Carl Rowan
[President Nixon,] in the face of a vote to impeach he might try, as "commander-in-chief", to use military forces to keep himself in power.

Carl Rowan
Clarence Thomas is the best only at his ability to bootlick for Ronald Reagan and George Bush... They didn't pick him because he was black. They picked him because he's a black conservative. And the thing that bothers me about his appointment — if they had put David Duke on, I wouldn't scream as much because they would look at David Duke and reject him for what he is. If you gave Clarence Thomas a little flour on his face, you'd think you had David Duke talking.

Carl Rowan
David Brinkley: Suppose somebody was breaking into your house at night, and you didn't have a gun. Wouldn't you wish you had one?
Sam Donaldson: No, I'd call the police immediately, I'd slam the doors, I'd cower under the bed, or in the closet...
Brinkley: George?
George Will: I'd call Carl Rowan.

Carl Rowan
We must reverse this psychology (of needing guns for home defense). We can do it by passing a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail- period!

Carl Rowan
There aren't any embarrassing questions—just embarrassing answers.

Carl Rowan
Unless Gingrich and Dole and the Republicans say, 'Am I inflaming a bunch of nuts?', you know we're going to have some more events (like the Oklahoma City bombing). I am absolutely certain the harsher rhetoric of the Gingriches and the Doles … creates a climate of violence in America.

Carl Rowan
Don't count out Marian Wright Edelman, because there is talk that President Clinton may want to shock the nation by putting a real black on the Supreme Court.

Carl Rowan