Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics QUOTES

1 " I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived from the constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity... "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

2 " The senate is a place filled with goodwill and good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with them, then it's a pretty good detour.
Hubert Humphrey, as quoted by Biden, p. 134 "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

3 " My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up. I made a pledge to myself that I would get up and emerge from this debacle better for having gone through it. I would live up to the expectation I had for myself. I would be the kind of man I wanted to be. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

4 " If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

5 " We must have public officials who will stand up and tell the people exactly what they think... Our failure in recent years has not been the failure of the people to meet the challenges placed before them, but rather the failure of both our great political parties to place those challenges honestly and courageously before the people, and to trust the willingness of the people to do the things that really need to be done. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

6 " you should not run for president because tactically you can win. The questions you have to ask are why you're running for president and what will you do when you are president. You shouldn't run until you know the answers to those questions. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

7 " the Democratic Party had failed (in 1983)
'to remember waht got us this far and how we got here -- moral indignation, decent instincts, a sense of shared sacrifice and mutual responsibility, and a set of national priorities that emphasized what we had in common.. The Party that was the engine of the national interest -- molding our pluralistic interest into a compelling new social contract that served the nation well for fifty years -- became perceived as little more than the broker of narrow special interests. Instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans first, Democrats second, and members of interest groups third, we have begun to think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.. We have let our opponents set the agenda and define what is at stake.
p. 140 "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

8 " We all know - or at least we are told continuously - that we are a divided people. And we know there's a degree of truth in it. We have too often allowed our differences to prevail among us. We have too often allowed ambitious men to play off those differences for political gain. We have too often retreated behind our differences when no one really tried to lead us beyond them. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

9 " Senator John Stennis:
The civil rights movement did more to free the white man that the black man. ... It freed my soul. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

10 " America is the promised land, because each generation bequeathed to its children a promise, a promise that they might not come to enjoy but which they fully expected their offspring to fulfill. So the words 'all men are created equal' took a life of its own, ultimately destined to end slavery and enfranchise women. And the words 'equal protection' and 'due process' inevitably led to the end of the words 'separate but equal,' ensuring that the walls of segregation would crumble, whether at the lunch counter or at the voting booth. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

11 " quoting from Neil Kinnock, running against Thatcher in 1987:
Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Is it because all our predecessors were thick? Did they lack talent? Those people who could sing, and play, and recite, and write poetry, those people who could make wonderful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn't they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak? Those women who could survive eleven childbearings? Were they weak? Anybody really think that they didn't get what we have because they didn't have the talent, or the strength, or the endurance, or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform on which they could stand. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

12 " 1983:
To my generation has now come the challenge. In the days to come we will be tested on whether we have the moral courage, the realism, the idealism, the tenacity, and the ability to sacrifice some of the current comfort to invest in the future... I believe that this generation will rise to the challenge... The experts believe that, like the Democratic Party itself, the less than forty-year-old voters are prepared to sell their souls for some security, real or illusory. They have misjudged us. Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep in our broken hearts. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

13 " I wasn't built to look the other way because the law demanded it. The law might be wrong. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

14 " I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

15 " My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

16 " My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

17 " He wanted me to understand two big things: First, that nobody, no group, is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they'll like what he has to say. And second, that politics was a matter of personal honor. A man's word is his bond. You give your word, you keep it. For as long as I can remember, I've had a sort of romantic notion of what politics should be- and can be. If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game. Nearly forty years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe- as I know my grandpop did- that my chosen profession is a noble calling. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

18 " I hear the voice of the people calling for a future in which every American is more secure in life and liberty and more able to pursue happiness. I hear the voice of people willing to make sacrifices today to achieve that kind of tomorrow. It's time for a president to listen to that rising voice and to amplify it. It's time for a president who can point the American people to the future within their reach, tell them what it will take to get there, and vigilantly remind them why it's worth fighting for. It's time for a president to stand up and remind the American people that we have promises to keep -- promises to the world, promises to one another, promises to our children and to our grandchildren. In rededicating ourselves to to the hard work of fulfilling those promises, we restore America as the hope of the world and the vision of a brighter future. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

19 " I thought I’d died and gone to Yale. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

20 " When Seagull droppings landed on my head at a campaign event, I chose to read it as a sign of a coming success. "

― , Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics