Top 90 Quotes & Sayings by Barbara Jordan - Page 2

The arts, instead of quaking along the periphery of our policy concerns, must push boldly into the core of policy. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature and help to shape our identity. The arts are not a frill and should not be treated as such. They have the potential to become the driving force for healing division and divisiveness.

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.

...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process.

The earth is bread we take and eat.

We want to be in control of our lives. Whether we are jungle fighters, craftsmen, company men, gamesmen, we want to be in control. And when the government erodes that control, we are not comfortable.

I have faith in young people because I know the strongest emotions which prevail are those of love and caring and belief and tolerance.

I never wanted to be run of the mill.

We are a heterogeneous party made up of Americans of diverse backgrounds.

Americanization means the process of becoming an American. It means civic incorporation, becoming a part of the polity - becoming one of us. But that does not mean conformity. We are more than a melting pot, we are a kaleidoscope, where every turn of history refracts new light on the old promise.

The Supreme Court has always been the last bastion of the protection of our freedoms.

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.

We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear. King Hussein Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. - Thomas Jefferson We have made mistakes. In our haste to do all things for all people, we did not foresee the full consequences of our actions. And when the people raised their voices, we didn't hear. But our deafness was only a temporary condition, and not an irreversible condition.

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.

Things which matter cost money, and we've got to spend the money if we do not want to have generations of parasites rather than generations of productive citizens.

We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.

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.

When do any of us ever do enough?

...we must face the fact that unilateral action on the part of the United States will never be enough to stop illegal immigration. Immigrants come here illegally from source countries where conditions prevail that encourage or even compel them to leave. Attacking the causes of illegal migration is essential and will require international cooperation.

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.

A spirit of harmony can only survive if each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.

I spent my entire career trying to protect the Constitution, the civil rights and the civil liberties of American citizens and people who are here lawfully. I, as chair of this commission, would not be a party to any system that I felt was an unpardonable intrusion into the private lives of people. If I felt that what we are recommending would be such an intrusion I can assure you that recommendation would never have seen the light of day, not even as a pilot program.

I never intended to be a run-of-the-mill person.

If you're going to play the game [politics] properly, you'd better know every rule.

[It is] one of the most complex and emotional issues of out time.

Fairness is an across-the-board requirement for all our interactions with each other ...Fairness treats everbody the same.

I live a day at a time. Each day I look for a kernel of excitement. In the morning, I say: 'What is my exciting thing for today?' Then, I do the day. Don't ask me about tomorrow.

The Commission endorses prevention as the principal strategy to use in deterring illegal entries. We applaud the efforts of innovative Border Patrol leaders such as Silvestre Reyes with Operation Hold the Line in El Paso. Operation Hold the Line demonstrated that a strategic use of personnel and technology can combine at our land border, as it has for many years at our airports, to reduce unauthorized crossings.

The stakes ... are too high for government to be a spectator sport.

The arts are not a frill. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature, and help to shape our identity. What is there that can transcend deep difference and stubborn divisions? The arts. They have a wonderful universality. Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. The arts do not discriminate. The arts lift us up.

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.