I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I'm not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I'm equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or fat cats or special interests... I am the candidate of the people...

Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time... its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.

I have never cared too much what people say. What I am interested in is what they do.

I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

Don't list to those who say YOU CAN'T. Listen to the voice inside yourself that says, I CAN.

I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.

I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.