Jesse Jackson Quotes

I'm a Third World person. I grew up in an occupied zone [Greenville, South Carolina] and had to negotiate with the superpower, really the colonial power.

When I first went to jail in 1960 with seven classmates trying to use their public library against the backdrop of my father being a veteran of World War II, not being able to use - having to sit behind Nazi on American military bases, I lost my fear of jails and death.

In many ways Africa subsidised America and Europe's development.

Most poor people are not on welfare. . . I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They clean the streets. They work every day. They drive vans with cabs. They work every day. They change beds you slept in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work every day . . .

When we take out school psychologists, truant officers, counselors, art, music, and athletics, and bring in the police, the school gets turned into a feeder system for the penal system.

If you and I got on an airplane, you're going to L.A., Los Angeles, and I'm going to Senegal, we get there about the same time. The world is just that small. So a world that is so tightly bound by science and technology and now Internet and the web page, that world is too small for bullies. It has no room in that world for arrogance.

If the states had to vote on slavery, we would have lost the vote.

America is not like a blanket- one piece of unbroken cloth. America is more like a quilt- many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven together by a common thread.

If you don't know what tomorrow holds, you need to know who holds tomorrow!

Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.

I think Hamas should be challenged to consider really embracing Gandhi and Dr. Kings philosophy of advocating nonviolence as a way to achieve self determination, end occupation, achieve unity within their country, and gain allies within Israel. I think this idea of an eye for and eye, a rocket for a bomb, will never bring about peace for either side.

The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.

America needs young people to be inspired to choose sacrifice over greed.

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

You may choose your mate, but you cannot deny someone else the right to choose their mate.

In order for an ideal to become a reality, there must be a person, a personality to translate it.

We’ve been so preoccupied with getting the government to behave in a fair and democratic way, we were not able to focus on the private sector where most of the jobs are, where most of the wealth and opportunities are.

Sometimes arrogance makes us overreach. George Bush Jr. often tries to suggest the leaders of other countries, and it is just not good diplomacy.

When I came here, I put my hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. I didn't put my hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.

[Donald Trump] says if he wins, he`ll accept the outcome. If he lose, he will not accept the outcome. That is playing by two set of rules that is not very fair.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

We picked their cotton. We cooked their food. We nursed their babies. Now we can run their cities. We can run their states. We will run the country.

If you think black people have a motivation problem, open up a Wal-Mart and advertise a thousand jobs. Watch 5,000 people show up.

Abortion is black genocide...What happens to the mind of a person and the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience?

You can't plant a seed and pick the fruit the next morning.

Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites -- rather than fighting for jobs or education -- fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.

Life has its dimensions in the mysterious.

It is in struggle and service with our brothers and sisters, individually and collectively, that we find the meaning of life.

A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.

We made this inexplicable turn into Iraq, where we've lost lives, money, honour and the coalition on [George] Bush's watch. Surely he's not suggesting that if the Democrats win, things can get worse. I mean, all we can do now is to look at our field policy and change the course. We need more diplomatic outreach toward Iran, Syria and Middle Eastern allies, and less bluster and less threats, and fewer troops.

We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together.

Iraq will drive American agenda for a long time because Iraq policy has so damaged America in the Middle East region, left us isolated. We are there now by brute strength, we are not there because we are desired.

It is crucial to have inspiring leaders who deliver on their promises. Cynicism has run deep, because many people think their vote does not matter or do vote and nothing happens.

We are organising our enemies into a formidable force, we are The US public has turned against the war, the Republicans and Democrats have turned against the war. And so when the American public turns against the war and the Congress turns against the war, it suggests that Americans feel we cannot win that war in those conditions. So the Iraqi Commission says, "Well, we can't win this war militarily, we need to reassess potential allies." There's Syria, there's Iran.

If I were a white candidate, I'd have won the Democratic nomination.

George Bush has met more foreign heads of state than I have. But a substantial number of them were dead.

His [Donald Trump] urban policy is stop and frisk, law and order. And we need investment and development.

Race designation is a political designation.

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.

I mean, the fight for a health care bill to cover all Americans and leave none behind is attacked as being a race appeal, which is not true, but then it's put out in the media as true.

Your house is your first small business. It's where your investment is and [where] our greatest asset is.

We have a moral concern to feed all of the hungry, wipe out malnutrition, so that every American be housed and every child have access to education.

I must oppose the use of federal funds for a policy of killing infants.

No one has earned the right to do less than their best.

A check or credit card, a Gucci bag strap, anything of value will do. Give as you live.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

The charges that I am anti-Semitic are simply erroneous, felonious, and unceremonious. In fact, when I need a doctor, I always look for one with a Jewish name.