122 Quotes by Shirley Chisholm

I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo… to give a voice to the people the major candidates were ignoring. What I hope most is that now there will be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-looking white male.

I am and always will be a catalyst for change.

When I die, I want to be remembered as a woman who lived in the twentieth century and who dared to be a catalyst of change. I don't want to be remembered as the first black woman who went to Congress. And I don't even want to be remembered as the first woman who happened to be black to make a bid for the Presidency I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the twentieth century. That's what I want.

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

You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.

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

It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality.

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...

As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers – a great pity on both counts.