Jesse Jackson Quotes

Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.

If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.

We must face the No. 1 critical issue of our day. It is youth crime in general and black-on-black crime in particular. There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved. After all we have been through, just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating.

You may not be responsible for being down, but you must be responsible for getting up.

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.

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

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.

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

Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes. Keep hope alive.

You can't teach what you don't know. And you can't lead where you don't go.

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

Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rater than pushed by our memories.

If you try you may fail, if you don't try you're guaranteed to fail.

At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.

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

When everyone is included, everyone wins.

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

The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.

Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

Dream big dreams! Others may deprive you of your material wealth and cheat you in a thousand ways, but no man can deprive you of the control and use of your imagination. Men may deal with you unfairly, as men often do; they may deprive you of your liberty; but they cannot take from you the privilege of using your imagination. In your imagination you always win!

The only time you should look down at someone, is when you are helping them up.

The burden of being black is that you have to be superior just to be equal. But the glory of it is that, once you achieve, you have achieved, indeed.

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.

We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.

We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together. That is the new challenge of the new world... learning to co-exist and not co-annihilate.