Top 277 Quotes & Sayings by Jesse Jackson

If you don't feel apologetic for slavery, if you don't feel apologetic for colonialism, if you feel proud of it then say that.

We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together. That is the new challenge of the new world... learning to co-exist and not co-annihilate.

What is the American dream? The American dream is one big tent. One big tent. And on that big tent you have four basic promises: equal protection under the law, equal opportunity, equal access, and fair share.

America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.

While I've spent a lot of quality time with my children, perhaps it's not been enough.

At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.

I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted.

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.

Many are observing Ferguson and witnessing the anger, demonstrations, looting and vandalism and calling for quiet. But quiet isn't enough. The absence of noise isn't the presence of justice - and we must demand justice in Ferguson and the other 'Fergusons' around America.

You may choose your mate, but you cannot deny someone else the right to choose their mate.

A man who cannot be enticed by money or intimidated by the threat of jail or death has two of the strongest weapons that anyone has to offer.

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.

Many kids come out of college, they have a credit card and a diploma. They don't know how to buy a house or a car or health insurance or life insurance. They do not know basic microeconomics.

Conservatives and liberals can find common ground.

For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rater than pushed by our memories.

I'm too mature to be angry.

You can be out of slavery and have the right to vote, but unless you have access to capital, industry and technology, you can't fulfill your dreams.

When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through.

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

A check or credit card, a Gucci bag strap, anything of value will do. Give as you live.

At least the politicians are accountable to the voters.

I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn't born in me.

Keep hope alive!

Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.

The relationship between the prophet and the President, the priest and the President, is a sacred one.

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

If you run, you might lose. If you don't run, you're guaranteed to lose.

If you don't know what tomorrow holds, you need to know who holds tomorrow!

Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters.

A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.

In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

To allow injustice and inequality invites a Ferguson to your community. We must stand together, black, white, brown, red, and yellow and fight for justice and equality for all. It's the only way to avoid more Fergusons.

We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together.

Great things happen in small places. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Jesse Jackson was born in Greenville.

Look at the coded language the Right is using against President Barack Obama. Openly calling him a liar in Congress, saying he is 'not a Christian, he was not born here, he is not one of us.' That makes addressing such issues trickier for the first African-American in the White House.

When you create more small businesses, you create small entrepreneurship. Out of that comes self-determination and employment.

There's a full-court press to put down an uprising around Ferguson, but no preparation for lifting up the people there.

We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 percent of American blacks out of work.

If the states had to vote on slavery, we would have lost the vote.

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things.

Life has its dimensions in the mysterious.

I had to steal to survive.

There is no power in cynicism. There is no forward thrust in cynicism.

Your children need your presence more than your presents.

I had gained a greater appreciation of hearing the concerns of woman, doctors, and so many others.

We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up.

The more you focus on sex without love, and drugs and violence, lifestyle of intimidation and recycling, the less energy you spend on opening up the big tent.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

The laws are stacked for the wealthy.

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.

In tough economic times, desperate people do desperate things, and the abortion rate goes up.

We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.

The coffers are full of money and equipment for the Ferguson Police and the Missouri National Guard to put down a potential uprising, but no money for actually uplifting the people of Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri and around the nation.