Quotes from Shirley Chisholm

Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men.

George Wallace for some strange, unknown reason, he liked me. George Wallace came down to Florida, and he went all over Florida, and he said to the people, 'If you all can't vote for me, don't vote for those oval-headed lizards. Vote for Shirley Chisholm!' And that crashed my votes, because they thought that I was in league with him to get votes.

I'm looking to no man walking this earth for approval of what I'm doing.

I know that millions of Americans from all walks of life agree with me that leadership does not mean putting the ear to the ground to follow public opinion, but to have the vision of what is necessary and the courage to make it possible.

As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts.

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

That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions.

Health is a human right, not a privilege to be purchased.

America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity.

It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as odd and unfeminine.

Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.

Women have learned to flex their political muscles. You got to flex that muscle to get what you want.

I am the people's politician. If the day should ever come when the people can't save me, I'll know I'm finished.

I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo. The next time a woman runs, or a black, a Jew, or anyone from a group that the country is 'not ready' to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start.

Don't list to those who say YOU CAN'T. Listen to the voice inside yourself that says, I CAN.

That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.

Mother always said that even when I was 3, I used to get the 6- and 7-year-old kids on the block and punch them and say, 'Listen to me.'

Not only am I literally and figuratively the dark horse, I'm actually the poor horse. The only thing that I have going for me is my soul and my commitment to the American people.

I ran because somebody had to do it first. In this country, everybody is supposed to be able to run for president, but that has never really been true.

I want history to remember me... not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.

I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the woman's movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that.

Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.