122 Quotes by Shirley Chisholm

I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the woman's movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that.

I stand before you today to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for qualified candidates simply because he is not white or because she is not a male.

I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.

I ran because somebody had to do it first. In this country, everybody is supposed to be able to run for president, but that has never really been true.

George Wallace for some strange, unknown reason, he liked me. George Wallace came down to Florida, and he went all over Florida, and he said to the people, 'If you all can't vote for me, don't vote for those oval-headed lizards. Vote for Shirley Chisholm!' And that crashed my votes, because they thought that I was in league with him to get votes.

America is composed of all kinds of people - part of the difficulty in our nation today is due to the fact that we are not utilising the abilities and the talents of other brown and black peoples and females that have something to bring to the creativity and the rejuvenation and the revitalisation of this country.

The fact is that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the board - or a member of the House - does so for exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically, these are that she thinks she can do the job, and she wants to try.

Mother always said that even when I was 3, I used to get the 6- and 7-year-old kids on the block and punch them and say, 'Listen to me.'

Legal discrimination between the sexes is, in almost every instance, founded on outmoded views of society and the pre-scientific beliefs about psychology and physiology. It is time to sweep away these relics of the past and set further generations free of them.