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We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.

Barbara Jordan

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Barbara Jordan
Age: 59 †
Born: 1936
Born: February 21
Died: 1996
Died: January 17
American Politician
Author
Lawyer
Politician
University Teacher
Writer
Houston
Texas
Barbara Charline Jordan
Nations
Officials
Common
Servant
Tell
Sea
Exhort
Must
Nation
Admonish
Good
Rest
Uphold
People
Example
Hypocritical
Public
Servants
Call
Official

More quotes by Barbara Jordan

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...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process.
Barbara Jordan
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I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to, and that there are no limits, that you can just keep going, just keep soaring. I like that spirit.
Barbara Jordan
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We must have an economy that does not force the migrant worker's child to miss school in order to earn...just so the family can eat. That is the moral bankruptcy that trickle-down economics is all about.
Barbara Jordan
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We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community.
Barbara Jordan
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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
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All my growth and development led me to believe that if you really do the right thing, and if you play by the rules, and if you?ve got good enough, solid judgment and common sense, that you?re going to be able to do whatever you want to do with your life.
Barbara Jordan
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We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.
Barbara Jordan
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For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it.
Barbara Jordan
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My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminuation, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. It is reason and not passion which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
Barbara Jordan
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The Supreme Court has always been the last bastion of the protection of our freedoms.
Barbara Jordan
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Justice of right is always to take precedence over might.
Barbara Jordan
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The Commission agrees that the federal government should help alleviate these costs. The best way to do so is to reduce illegal immigration.... We recommend immediate reimbursement of criminal justice costs, because these conditions can now be met, but we urge further study of the costs of health care and education before impact aid is provided.
Barbara Jordan
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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
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The earth is bread we take and eat.
Barbara Jordan
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Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.
Barbara Jordan
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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
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Let's all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.
Barbara Jordan
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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
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Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.
Barbara Jordan
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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