72 Quotes by Joycelyn Elders

Health is more than absence of disease; it is about economics, education, environment, empowerment, and community. The health and well being of the people is critically dependent upon the health system that serves them. It must provide the best possible health with the least disparities and respond equally well to everyone.

I always say my God will take care of me. If it’s my time I’ll go, and if it’s not I won’t. I feel that He really has a lot of important things for me to do. And He’s going to make sure that I’m here to do them.

We’ve tried ignorance for a thousand years. It’s time we try education.

I feel that we can’t educate children who are not healthy, and we can’t keep them healthy if they’re not educated. There has to be a marriage between health and education. You can’t learn if your mind is full of unhealthy images from daily life and confusion about right and wrong.

You can’t educate people that are not healthy. But you certainly can’t keep them healthy if they’re not educated.

You can’t be what you don’t see. I didn’t think about being a doctor. I didn’t even think about being a clerk in a store, I’d never seen a black clerk in a clothing store.

I want every child that’s born in the world to be planned and wanted.

I’m against abstinence programs because I really consider “abstinence only” child abuse.

Guns are far too accessible and too readily available. There are over 200 million guns in our society – and that’s just the legal ones, the ones we know about. Every ten seconds, another gun is produced. And every fourteen minutes, some person in America dies from gun-inflicted action.