American Quotes

A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.

We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.

One thing is clear to me: We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.

More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.

It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

In other times, I could stand here and give this kind of exposition on the beliefs of the Democratic Party and that would be enough. But today that is not enough. People want more.

I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it.

But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.

For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.

Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment.

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.

We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.

What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.

My father wouldn't get us a TV, he wouldn't allow a TV in the house.

Rock on out.

I got treated very badly in Texas. They don't treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people thought I was a beatnik, though they'd never seen one and neither had I.

On stage, I make love to 25,000 different people, then I go home alone.

You got to get it while you can.

Texas is OK if you want to settle down and do your own thing quietly, but it's not for outrageous people, and I was always outrageous.

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was, like other chicks want to be stewardesses. I read. I painted. I thought.

You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.

On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone.

Guess what, I might be the first hippie pinup girl.

When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.

I won't quit to become someone's old lady.

If I hold back, I'm no good. I'm no good. I'd rather be good sometimes, than holding back all the time.