Quotes from Madeleine M. Kunin

Sometimes compromise is painful.

When we mention the 1 percent and the 99 percent, everybody now knows what we are talking about. It's part of our vocabulary. How quickly these numbers jumped from the sidelines to the center.

The vice presidential candidate does not usually make much difference at the polls. But that may be changing as voters become more aware that the understudy must be ready to take over if needed.

Common wisdom dictates that the vice president should provide balance to the ticket by representing a different part of the country, another set of experiences, or a basketful of electoral votes.

The Republican agenda is, and always has been, to repeal Roe v. Wade, and at the very least, erode it to the greatest extent possible.

Those who speak up, those who use their connections, are more likely to succeed than those who sit and wait.

Why can't the world be like a summer day, when I thought that health care would be an ethical decision and wars existed only to be stopped?

Early childhood education begins early, even before birth.

Working moms, and increasingly working dads, don't want a government handout, but they do need a hand up.

Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?

Most babies know how to win us over. We cannot help but smile at them and watch them smile back.

It is the future, of course, which politicians grapple with, and that is why politics is so disorderly. Only history clears away some of the debris.

In Washington, the translation of E Pluribus Unum has been lost. The belief that we are one nation - united in purpose - caring about and for one another is no longer the practice.

You have to build your credentials as a candidate, not just as a woman. You also have to be willing to exercise power. We've been educated to be mothers, peacemakers, but we must learn that we can't please everybody.

One reason the United States is one of three countries in the world that do not have any form of paid maternity leave is that many American business leaders, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, oppose any family-friendly policies. They scare people into thinking maternity leave will be a job killer.

To equate a corporation with a person is a travesty of justice.

We must speed up the time table for fathers, brothers and sons to provide their mothers, daughters and sisters with the same opportunities that they give themselves.

The focus of Congress is on keeping the nation secure - and it doesn't see that food security is an essential part of that responsibility. Instead of putting more food on the tables of America, they are busy finding ways to take it away.

When facing the public, politicians constantly filter their ideas through a political sieve. 'How will this affect the environmentalists, labor, management?' Sometimes the sieve gets so clogged by political taboos that no new ideas pass through.

Volunteer activities can foster enormous leadership skills. The nonprofit professional volunteer world is a laboratory for self - realization.

It's time for women to wake up, to use the power of the vote, to honor the suffragists who chained themselves to the White House fence so that women could vote.

The political environment we create matters because a disturbed person cannot always tell the difference between explosive rhetoric and explosive actions.

One is responsible for one's own life. Passivity provides no protection.

Our right to disagree is precious but fragile. The best way to protect and preserve it is to let the other side speak without demonizing them or destroying their right to be heard. Such civil exchanges are the heart beat of democracy - essential to keeping it alive.