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At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.

Shirley Chisholm

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Shirley Chisholm
Age: 80 †
Born: 1924
Born: November 30
Died: 2005
Died: January 1
American Politician
Politician
Brooklyn
New York
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm
Shirley Anita Chisholm
Politics
Else
Women
Country
Idealism
Needs
Determination
Anywhere
Perhaps
Present

More quotes by Shirley Chisholm

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We have never seen health as a right. It has been conceived as a privilege, available only to those who can afford it. This is the real reason the American health care system is in such a scandalous state.
Shirley Chisholm
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The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference between open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians.
Shirley Chisholm
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The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.
Shirley Chisholm
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My God, what do we want? What does any human being want?
Shirley Chisholm
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... all Americans are the prisoners of racial prejudice.
Shirley Chisholm
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I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.
Shirley Chisholm
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You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
Shirley Chisholm
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Don't list to those who say YOU CAN'T. Listen to the voice inside yourself that says, I CAN.
Shirley Chisholm
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To label family planning and legal abortion programs genocide is male rhetoric, for male ears.
Shirley Chisholm
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I had met far more discrimination because I am a woman than because I am black.
Shirley Chisholm
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As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts.
Shirley Chisholm
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I was well on the way to forming my present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gelded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own: their votes. And who benefits the most? The lawyers.
Shirley Chisholm
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It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.
Shirley Chisholm
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Racism keeps people who are being managed from finding out the truth through contact with each other.
Shirley Chisholm
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That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions.
Shirley Chisholm
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We have been so patient and loyal ... and what has it gotten us? We want our full share now.
Shirley Chisholm
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Some members of Congress are among the best actors in the world.
Shirley Chisholm
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My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency.
Shirley Chisholm
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Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power.
Shirley Chisholm
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Health is a human right, not a privilege to be purchased.
Shirley Chisholm