Hubert H. Humphrey

Each child is an adventure into a better life --an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

We are in danger of making our cities places where business goes on but where life, in its real sense, is lost.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

There are those who say to you -- we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humanness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution that I have ever known.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness -- it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

I learned more about the economy from one South Dakota dust storm than I did in all my years of college.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The difference between heresy and prophecy is often one of sequence. Heresy often turns out to have been prophecy -- when properly aged.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

There are incalculable resources in the human spirit, once it has been set free.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The great challenge which faces us is to assure that, in our society of big-ness, we do not strangle the voice of creativity, that the rules of the game do not come to overshadow its purpose, that the grand orchestration of society leaves ample room for the man who marches to the music of another drummer.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

National isolation breeds national neurosis.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice -- however much we might desire it.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Liberalism, above all, means emancipation -- emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination... from poverty.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity -- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The pursuit of peace resembles the building of a great cathedral. It is the work of a generation. In concept it requires a master-architect; in execution, the labors of many.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Never answer a question from a farmer.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The President is the people's lobbyist.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Profit and morality are a hard combination to beat.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. To be credible, it must be true.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

American public opinion is like an ocean -- it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

To be realistic today is to be visionary. To be realistic is to be starry-eyed.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

I think the worst thing this nation could do for humanity would be to leave any uncertainty as to our will, our purpose and our capacity to carry out our purpose.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

History teaches us that the great revolutions aren't started by people who are utterly down and out, without hope and vision. They take place when people begin to live a little better -- and when they see how much yet remains to be achieved.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts -- it's what you do with what you have left.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

People in places many of us never heard of, whose names we can't pronounce or even spell, are speaking up for themselves. They speak in languages we once classified as exotic but whose mastery is now essential for our diplomats and businessmen. But what they say is very much the same the world over. They want a decent standard of living. They want human dignity and a voice in their own futures. They want their children to grow up strong and healthy and free.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure -- but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.

— Hubert H. Humphrey

There is in every American, I think, something of the old Daniel Boone -- who, when he could see the smoke from another chimney, felt himself too crowded and moved further out into the wilderness.

— Hubert H. Humphrey