Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Letitia James

I come from a family of eight on public assistance, my parents were separated. My mother struggled, my father struggled.

I say that our economic future is in the new technology that will lead to more fuel efficient cars and cleaner energy.

The status quo is clearly broken, and we must strive for bigger, bolder solutions that will provide New Yorkers with the support they need to remain in their homes.

I've known struggle.

Human induced climate change is real, and the evidence is right in front of us. It threatens our shores. It promises to bring intense heat waves and powerful storms. It has the power to disrupt our economy, endanger our food supply, and imperil global stability. We must take action to stop it.

Being underpaid once shouldn't condemn you to a lifetime of inequality.

We have these events, 'Talk to Tish.' They're basically kitchen-roundtable discussions about issues in the City of New York, because you can learn more by listening.

We must simply do every single thing in our power to protect our children from abuse and help them live healthy, prosperous lives.

Under the not-so-watchful eye of ACS, children continue to die avoidable deaths. This is beyond unacceptable and betrays our moral conscience.

Dysfunction in Washington has stalled any meaningful federal action on gun control. So it's increasingly up to big cities like New York to take bold steps to get weapons off our streets and change the national discourse.

Part of the reason why I wanted to be involved in politics was to create and be a part of policy changes.

The reflex of police officers, when making the decision whether to use force and on what scale, must not be a result of instinctive bias, but on objective and discernible factors. As the enforcers of law and order, they have to adhere to the letter of the law and minimize the taints of biases and life long social conditioning.

Legally, many contractors are required to pay a prevailing wage. However, bad actors often find ways to get around this requirement.

We must ensure that we are hiring and retaining qualified, diverse candidates not only to teach in our classrooms, but to work at the DOE overseeing our students' education.

Before any family is placed in any type of shelter, there must be a thorough, top-to-bottom, building-wide inspection. These inspections must be ongoing and publicly accessible. There is no excuse for any person to be blindly put into an apartment without a guarantee that the space is safe.

Is truth about domestic violence and those who enable it more important than a company's corporate partnerships? I think so.

Some contractors force workers to provide paybacks to keep their jobs. Others intentionally misclassify workers in order to underpay them - by, for example, paying a skilled construction worker as a general laborer.

New York City must divest the hundreds of millions of dollars we have invested in Walmart for far too long, dollars that are only fueling violence and undermining the greater public interest. Once our nation's largest city does so, I know other states and municipalities will follow suit.

Our system of government works best when there are checks and balances led by independent entities that are empowered to conduct fair and rigorous oversight. These are the same principles enshrined in the founding document of our country - our Constitution.

Only when we ensure that the mistakes of our past are not the vision for our future, will we truly have achieved justice.

The scales of justice often, in my head, are unbalanced. And so my job is to try to balance out those scales.

Any district attorney knows that an endorsement from law enforcement unions is vital to earning voters' trust. As a result, police unions play an outsized role in district attorney elections.

To my dismay, inadequate signage, non-ADA compliant ramps, narrow doorways, and poorly-placed voting machines are preventing hundreds of thousands of people from exercising one of our most basic rights as Americans.

All of my life and particularly throughout of my public career, I have been talking about the feminization of poverty. And one of the manifestations of the feminization of poverty is the issue of pay inequality in our society.

It is no secret that New York City has an affordable housing shortage. For those who've returned from the battlefield, the problem is even more pronounced.

I come from a long line of very strong, tough women. We stick to our principles and stand up for what we believe in, which is fundamental fairness, which is my raison d'etre.

I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

For generations America and its institutions have refused to acknowledge the true severity of the harm that domestic violence imposes on our society.

Telling the truth about domestic violence - and those who shield it - should not be punished.

District attorneys are often some of the finest public servants. However, the system in which they operate to investigate cases of police misconduct leaves a huge window for unintended bias.

When it comes to climate change and the environment, President Donald Trump is plain wrong.

As Public Advocate for the City of New York, I will be working with the Administration for Children's Services and others to bring about necessary reforms - and ensure that our city meets its most solemn responsibility - protecting the welfare of our children.

While New York City cannot prevent other jurisdictions from selling firearms, it has taken a powerful stance against guns by divesting pension funds from gun manufacturers.

I've got a moral center.

I've been independent all of my life.

The vast majority of our men and women in uniform are doing the right thing.

I know what it's like to be on public assistance and to be unemployed. And I know what it's like to be evicted.

Like with all other crime, we must, of course, treat the perpetrators of these actions as the criminals they are. But unlike with the vast majority of other crime, justice is not delivered simply by punishing the perpetrator. This is because the harm associated with domestic violence extends far beyond the point of contact.

New Yorkers want to be compassionate, and they want to live in a city where homeless people aren't stuffed into shelters, spilling out onto the streets. They also want a support system that works.

Children of domestic violence, of course, suffer terrible consequences.

The vast majority of our teachers, our principals and our PTAs are well informed and well meaning, but even those with the best intentions can benefit from cultural competency training.

Our justice system allows district attorneys to be charged with the great responsibility of prosecuting the very same police officers they work side-by-side with every day and whose union support they seek when running for reelection.

Our schools should be sanctuaries of learning, not nightmares of cruel and racist behavior.

The workers who get hurt by corner-cutting often do not realize they are being wronged. Even when they do, they do not have the support and resources to fight back. Without a union to stand behind them, these workers are forced to stay in bad jobs, or face no job at all.

We have a moral responsibility to help veterans avoid homelessness and displacement.

On the local, state and federal level, government is working alongside veteran's organizations and other stakeholders to provide services such as medical assistance, employment resources, and housing support to veterans and their dependents and survivors. But there are still gaps in services that must be rectified.

I come from humble beginnings myself.

Walmart markets its gun department as 'sports and outdoors,' but let us get one thing straight: They are not just selling hunting rifles.

Home Stability Support is our best shot at creating an all-encompassing and effective system to ensure that our at-risk children and families can remain in the homes they deserve.

What's historically been referred to as 'gerrymandering' can more aptly be labeled an incumbent protection program.

Wage discrimination lasts forever. The disparity haunts women beyond their years in the labor force, impacting how much they save for retirement and ultimately receive in Social Security benefits.

New Yorkers would be shocked to learn of the conditions some construction workers in our city toil under.

I just try to fight for the underdog, and try to fight for those who are locked out of the sunshine of opportunity.

The Office of Attorney General should be independent and the Office of Attorney General should have the power to investigate without the approval of the governor of the state of New York. It's absolutely critically important.

Our evenly matched rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness require an equal paycheck.

Each day, millions of police officers do the selfless work of putting their lives on the line to protect civilians, frequently responding to or preventing crises completely with no recognition.

The reality is that I've been counted out for a very long time and people continue to underestimate me and I continue to overperform.

Though few hiring managers would deliberately choose to offer women less money than their male counterparts, when using salary history to determine compensation, they unintentionally preserve the status quo. Too often, women will have a lower salary history, and, therefore get a lower offer.

As Public Advocate for the City of New York, I have a duty to speak truth to power and do what is best for our City and its residents.

Within New York City and state, families in need face a confusing hodgepodge of supplemental rental assistance programs, many of which are ineffective individually and all of which are clearly ineffective in the aggregate.