Shirley Chisholm Quotes

I’ve always met more discrimination being a woman than being Black…men are men.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers – a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.

If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl.’

I don’t measure America by its achievement but by its potential.

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.

There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.

I’m finding all over America that people are sick and tired of the tweedle-dee dees and the tweedle-dee dums who constantly flip-flap from one side to another. People are interested in having candidates that are truthful.

Women must become revolutionary. This cannot be evolution but revolution.