Hubert H. Humphrey Quotes

There are not enough jails, not enough police, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people.

There is a great deal of difference between living and surviving. You can survive in debauchery, even in sickness and despair. But you live with a spirit of vitality and a spirit of participation, of being wanted, and having something to contribute.

We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people's policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country.

When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness -- it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum.

The moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life: the children; ... the elderly.

When we say, 'One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all', we are talking about all people. We either ought to believe it or quit saying it .

Like many things in our national life, we miscalculated. We overestimated our ability to control events, which is one of the great dangers of a great power. Power tends to be a substitute for judgment and wisdom.

There can be no compromise on the right of personal security; there can be no compromise on securing of human rights.

If today there is a proper American "sphere of influence" it is this fragile sphere called earth upon which all men live and share a common fate--a sphere where our influence must be for peace and justice.

If the Senator can find in Title VII any language which provides that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related to color, race, religion, or national origin, I will start eating the pages one after another, because it is not in there.

The ugliness of bigotry stands in direct contradiction to the very meaning of America.

I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humanness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution that I have ever known.

What you do, what each of us does, has an effect on the country, the state, the nation, and the world.

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

There is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment, because hunger is not acceptable, poverty is not acceptable, poor health is not acceptable, and a ruined life is not acceptable.

We will have to decide today whether we will design the future or resign ourselves to it.

To be realistic today is to be visionary. To be realistic is to be starry-eyed.

The gap between the rich and the poor is the most dangerous threat to world peace we have.

You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise.

What do we want for people? Human dignity, personal expression and fulfillment, justice, freedom.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Each child is an adventure into a better life - an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new.

Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on.

I learned more about the economy from one South Dakota dust storm that I did in all my years of college.

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.

Never give in and never give up.

It is not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.

It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.

Equality means equality for all - no exceptions, no 'yes, buts', no asterisked footnotes imposing limits.

What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.

Life's unfairness is not irrevocable; we can help balance the scales for others, if not always for ourselves.

More progress results from the violent execution of an imperfect plan than the perfection of a plan to violently execute.

There are incalculable resources in the human spirit, once it has been set free.

To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

I do not feel that we should allow a shortage of funds to prevent cities from financing needed projects.

I am not here to judge whether people are locked in poverty because of themselves or because of the society in which they live. All I know is that they are there and we are trying to do something about it.

Until racial justice and freedom is a reality in this land, our union will remain profoundly imperfect.

History teaches us that the great revolutions aren't started by people who are utterly down and out, without hope and vision. They take place when people begin to live a little better - and when they see how much yet remains to be achieved.

In the minds and hearts of the American people, there is a great hunger for peace based on a universal recognition of the values of freedom and human dignity.

The message of the United States is not nuclear power. The message of the United States is a spiritual message. It is the message of human ideals; it is the message of human dignity; it is the message of the freedom of ideas, speech, press, the right to assemble, to worship, and the message of freedom of movement of people.

None of us would trade freedom of expression for the narrowness of the public censor. America is a free market for people who have something to say, and need not fear to say it.

This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.

Liberalism, above all, means emancipation - emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination, from poverty.

We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice - however much we might desire it.

For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end.

I believe that each of us can make a difference. That what is wrong can be made right. That people possess the basic wisdom and goodness to govern themselves without conflict.

We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit.