At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.
Shirley Chisholm

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.
Shirley Chisholm

I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.
Shirley Chisholm

It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.
Shirley Chisholm

Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.
Shirley Chisholm

Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.
Shirley Chisholm

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It's a girl.
Shirley Chisholm

The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.
Shirley Chisholm

There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.
Shirley Chisholm

Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.
Shirley Chisholm

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.
Shirley Chisholm

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
Shirley Chisholm