Hubert Humphrey Quotes & Sayings

The measure of a civilization is how it treats those at the dawn of life, the margins of life and the twilight of life. — Hubert H. Humphrey

To err is human. To blame someone else is politics. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Humphrey will go into a black neighborhood in Milwaukee and drench the streets with tears while deploring "the enduring tragedy" that life in Nixon's America has visited on "these beautiful little children" - and then act hurt and dismayed when a reporter who covered his Florida campaign reminds him that "In Miami you were talking just a shade to the Left of George Wallace and somewhere to the Right of Mussolini." Hubert — Hunter S. Thompson

The leadership for civil rights has to take place in the White House or it is going to take place in the streets. — 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

The view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition came, in time, to be called neoconservatism. Many ... , myself included, disliked the term because we did not think we were conservative, neo or paleo. (I voted for John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey and worked in the latter's presidential campaign.) It would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics; that is, people who thought it was hard, though not impossible, to make useful and important changes in public policy. — James Q. Wilson

It is all too easy for a society to measure itself against some abstract philosophical principle or political slogan. But in the end, there must remain the question: What kind of life is one society providing to the people that live in it? — 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

Hubert Humphrey with kids"Be clear where America stands. Human brotherhood and equal opportunity for every man, woman, and child, we are committed to it, in America and around the world." — Hubert H. Humphrey

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor. — Hubert H. Humphrey

In life it isn't what you've lost, it's what you've got left that counts — 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 road to freedom, here and everywhere, begins in the classroom. — Hubert H. Humphrey

You remind me of Hubert Humphrey. You talk too much — Ernest Hollings

We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people's policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The President is the people's lobbyist. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Like many things in our national life, we miscalculated. We overestimated our ability to control events, which is one of the great dangers of a great power. Power tends to be a substitute for judgment and wisdom. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Just be what you are and speak from your guts and heart - it's all a person has. — 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

Anyone who thinks that the vice-president can take a position independent of the president of his administration simply has no knowledge of politics or government. You are his choice in a political marriage, and he expects your absolute loyalty. — Hubert H. Humphrey

In the minds and hearts of the American people, there is a great hunger for peace based on a universal recognition of the values of freedom and human dignity. — 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

Peace of mind is another way of saying that you've learned how to love, that you have come to appreciate the importance of giving love in order to be worthy of receiving it. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love. — Hubert H. Humphrey

It is always a risk to speak to the press: they are likely to report what you say. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The message of the United States is not nuclear power. The message of the United States is a spiritual message. It is the message of human ideals; it is the message of human dignity; it is the message of the freedom of ideas, speech, press, the right to assemble, to worship, and the message of freedom of movement of people. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Peace is not passive, it is active. Peace is not appeasement, it is strength. Peace does not 'happen,' it requires work. — Hubert H. Humphrey

My philosophy has always been that benefits should percolate up rather than trickle down. — 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

We will have to decide today whether we will design the future or resign ourselves to it. — Hubert H. Humphrey

You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise. — Hubert H. Humphrey

I believe that each of us can make a difference. That what is wrong can be made right. That people possess the basic wisdom and goodness to govern themselves without conflict. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Equality means equality for all- no exceptions, no 'yes, buts', no asterisked footnotes imposing limits. — Hubert H. Humphrey

What do we want for people? Human dignity, personal expression and fulfillment, justice, freedom. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Though everyone has an equal right to speak,
not all have earned an equal right to be taken seriously. — Hubert H. Humphrey

[He]talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages. — Barry M. Goldwater

Capital, and the question of who owns it and therefore reaps the benefit of its productiveness, is an extremely important issue that is complementary to the issue of full employment ... I see these as twin pillars of our economy: Full employment of our labor resources and widespread ownership of our capital resources. Such twin pillars would go a long way in providing a firm underlying support for future economic growth that would be equitably shared. — 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

My favorite sandwich is peanut butter, baloney, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side. — Hubert H. Humphrey

This is the first generation in all of recorded history that can do something about the scourge of poverty. We have the means to do it. We can banish hunger from the face of the earth. — Hubert H. Humphrey

I do not feel that we should allow a shortage of funds to prevent cities from financing needed projects. — Hubert H. Humphrey

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 — Joe Biden

And what kind of sick and twisted impulse would cause a professional sportswriter to deliver a sermon from the Book of Revelations off his hotel balcony on the dawn of Super Sunday? I had not planned a sermon for that morning. I had not even planned to be in Houston, for that matter ... . But now, looking back on that outburst, I see a certain inevitability about it. Probably it was a crazed and futile effort to somehow explain the extremely twisted nature of my relationship with God, Nixon and the National Football League: The three had long since become inseparable in my mind, a sort of unholy trinity that had caused me more trouble and personal anguish in the past few months than Ron Ziegler, Hubert Humphrey and Peter Sheridan all together had caused me in a year on the campaign trail. — Hunter S. Thompson

More progress results from the violent execution of an imperfect plan than the perfection of a plan to violently execute. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Never give up on anybody. — Hubert H. Humphrey

American public opinion is like an ocean, it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon. — Hubert H. Humphrey

There's something I've been wanting to say for a long time. I'm a liberal, and I'm proud of it. In fact, I was probably a little more liberal than Hubert was. I just wanted to say that. — Muriel 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

Hubert Humphrey is a treacherous, gutless old ward-heeler who should be put in a goddamn bottle and sent out with the Japanese current. — Hunter S. Thompson

Much of our American progress has been the product of the individual who had an idea; pursued it; fashioned it; tenaciously clung to it against all odds; and then produced it, sold it, and profited from it. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Hubert Humphrey advised new members, If you feel an urge to stand up and make a speech attacking Vietnamese policy, don't make it. — Barbara W. Tuchman

You people voted for Hubert Humphrey and killed Jesus! — Hunter S. Thompson

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

The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights — Hubert H. Humphrey

If today there is a proper American "sphere of influence" it is this fragile sphere called earth upon which all men live and share a common fate
a sphere where our influence must be for peace and justice. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Never answer a question from a farmer. — Hubert H. Humphrey

What you do, what each of us does, has an effect on the country, the state, the nation, and the world. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Slumism is the pent-up anger of people living on the outside of affluence. Slumism is decay of structure and deterioration of the human spirit. Slumism is a virus which spreads through the body politic. As other "isms," it breeds disorder and demagoguery and hate. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The President has only 190 million bosses. The Vice President has 190 million and one. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Our opposition will never understand the Democratic Party. Our Party is
to the unpracticed eyes of the old Republican Tories
a mysterious contraption that usually seems to be moving in a thousand directions. What they don't know is what hurts them. For all that movement in the Democratic Party is caused by the internal combustion of creative ferment, of ideas, of people vigorously committed to the proposition that change and social progress are not only to be desired; they are necessities of twentieth-century America. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism. — Hubert H. Humphrey

You can't hoot with the owls and then soar with the eagles — Hubert H. Humphrey

After one of his [Hubert Humphrey] long-winded harangues I suggested he had probably been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. He responded by saying that I would have been a great success in the movies working for Eighteenth Century-Fox. — Barry Goldwater

We will be remembered not for the power of our weapons but for the power of our compassion, our dedication to human welfare. — Hubert H. Humphrey

According to Gandhi, the seven sins are wealth without works, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle. Well, Hubert Humphrey may have sinned in the eyes of God, as we all do, but according to those definitions of Gandhi's, it was Hubert Humphrey without sin. — Jimmy Carter

I learned more about the economy from one South Dakota dust storm that I did in all my years of college. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Well, you have to remember that until 1948, when Hubert Humphrey and others forced the Democratic Party to adopt a new policy on civil rights, the Democratic Party was the party of the old solid South. All of the racists, all of the Cottonhead Smith types and so on were Democrats, allies of Franklin Roosevelt - because of their seniority - of all the major committees of the Congress. — William A. Rusher

The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law. — Hubert H. Humphrey

It is better to gain a foot than to stand still, even when you seek to gain a mile. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Never give in,never give up,never surrender no matter what! — Hubert H. Humphrey

We live by hope. We do not ever get all we want when we want it. But we have to believe that someday, somehow, some way, it will be better and that we can make it so. — Hubert H. Humphrey

I am a Minnesotan, and not just because I root for the Vikings and the Twins. I like the Minnesota-nice sensibility. I like the liberal tradition; I like the Hubert Humphrey tradition fighting for civil rights. — Al Franken

It the Senator can find in Title VII any language which provides that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related to color, race, religion, or national origin, I will start eating the pages one after another, because it is not in there. — 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

Life's unfairness is not irrevocable; we can help balance the scales for others, if not always for ourselves. — Hubert H. Humphrey

There is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment, because hunger is not acceptable, poverty is not acceptable, poor health is not acceptable, and a ruined life is not acceptable. — 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

Never give in and never give up. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Hubert, a speech doesn't have to be eternal to be immortal. — Muriel Humphrey

The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it! — Hubert H. Humphrey

When we say, 'One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all', we are talking about all people. We either ought to believe it or quit saying it . — Hubert H. Humphrey

Profit and morality are a hard combination to beat. — Hubert H. Humphrey

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" ... in an airport in '64, Goldwater said, 'Well, keep punching, Hubert' during a chance meeting there.
By the end of 1977, it became increasingly clear that the Boss (Hubert Humphrey) would not be around much longer. And on the Senate floor one day, Barry Goldwater walked across the aisle and enveloped Hubert Humphrey. Goldwater was so big and Humphrey so frail that Humphrey almost disappeared. The two men stood for a long moment, locked in a hug, and I could see that both men were crying. They made no effort to hide it."
- Joe Biden (Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics) — Joe Biden

Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on. — Hubert H. Humphrey

In this time of national crises ... per haps we would do well to spend a few minutes in considering projects which grace and embellish the earth, instead of shaking it. — Hubert H. Humphrey

We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit. — 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

Before people will do anything, they have got to eat. And if you are really looking for a way for people to lean on you and to be dependent on you, in terms of their cooperation with you, it seems to me that food dependence would be terrific. — Hubert H. Humphrey

There are not enough jails, not enough police, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Hubert Humphrey's wife is said to have advised him: Darling, for a speech to be immortal it need not be interminable. — Peggy Noonan

There is a lot of difference between failure and defeat. Failure is when you are defeated and neither learn nor contribute anything. — Hubert H. Humphrey

There can be no compromise on the right of personal security; there can be no compromise on securing of human rights. — Hubert H. Humphrey

We can not expect to breed respect for law and order among people who do not share the fruits of our freedom. — Hubert H. Humphrey

If I believe in something, I will fight for it, with all I have. But I do not demand all or nothing. I would rather get something than nothing. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. [ ... ] the right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life: the children; ... the elderly. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The test we must set for ourselves is not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us. — Hubert H. Humphrey

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