Herbert Hoover Quotes

When people are educated, class distinction disappears.

Now we Democrats believe that America is still the country of fair play, that we can come out of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else, and it doesn't matter whether we are black or Hispanic, or disabled or women.

Superior ability is not the exclusive possession of any one race or any one class.

In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.

Every society naturally divides itself into classes. The author of nature has bestowed on some greater capacities than on others--birth, education, talents and wealth, create distinctions among men as visible and of as much influence as titles, stars and garters. In every society, men of this class will command a superior degree of respect--and if the government is so constituted as to admit but few to exercise the powers of it, it will, according to the natural course of things, be in their hands.

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? … Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had 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 upon which they could stand.

To abolish class distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself.

The supreme test of a democracy is the measure of equality of opportunity that it affords to its citizens to rise to the highest point of authority and position.

In a thriving economy, birth need not be destiny.

More than any other institution in American life, the public schools have broken down the barriers of class, race, religion, gender, ethnicity, language and disability status that separate people.

Our belief is that aspirations, meritocracy, and a world class institution are the three ingredients our country needs.

We are building a country where a person's prospects are determined by their own initiative and hard work and not by the color of their skin, place of birth, gender, language, or income of their parents.

We need every human gift and cannot afford to neglect any gift because of artificial barriers of sex or race or class or national origin.

No matter who you are, no matter what your color, creed, how you choose to pray or who you choose to love, that if you are an American - first generation or fifth - one who is willing to work hard, play by the rules and apply your God-given talents - that you should be able to find a job that pays the bills.

Your performance gets you promoted. It doesn't matter if you're brown, back or white.

This is the place where anybody - like an African American kid raised by a single mom - can be president.

The reason we had an all-black outfield in '51 is Don Mueller got hurt, so Hank Thompson was a legitimate replacement. So what? People talk about, 'You're the first to do this. You're the first to do that.' Don't dwell on race all the time.

There are people who are surprised at my politics and being a conservative and the rest of it. But the truth of the matter is, to my knowledge, I have never been overlooked or turned down for anything that I wanted to do that was being offered to me.

We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.

Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.

I suggest that those groups whose culture and values stress delayed gratification - education, hard work, success, and ambition - are those groups that succeed in America, regardless of discrimination.

I can't really speak to the other parts of the economy, but what I think is very true of the tech world is that it's easy for talented people - whatever their gender, age, or race - to rise up and succeed.

A white boy that makes C's in college can make it to the White House.

This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It's time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers.