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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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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
Beyond
Philosophy
Control
Responsibility
Must
Exchange
Excuse

More quotes by Barbara Jordan

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A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.
Barbara Jordan
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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
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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
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Justice of right is always to take precedence over might.
Barbara Jordan
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I do not bring any professional knowledge of the issue to bear, but what I do bring to my consideration of immigration is a deepened and highly sensitized feeling with those persons who feel alien in our country. I can feel the strangeness they feel because it is something I have experienced in a different area.
Barbara Jordan
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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
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If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.
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
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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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Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
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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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
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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
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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
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We can certainly defuse the intensity of the anti-immigrant feeling if we can bring some reality to the discussion by showing that they are not using that many resources.
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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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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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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I never wanted to be run of the mill.
Barbara Jordan
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One thing is very clear: Illegal immigrants are not entitled to benefits.
Barbara Jordan