Ann Richards famous quotes

We're not going to have the America that we want until we elect leaders who are going to tell the truth - not most days, but every day.
-- Ann Richards

#America #Leader #Want

I believe in recovery, and I believe that as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it.
-- Ann Richards

#Inspirational #Mistake #Believe

I get a lot of cracks about my hair, mostly from men who don't have any.
-- Ann Richards

#Men #Hair #Cracks

After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.
-- Ann Richards

#Inspirational #Dance #Women

I thought I knew Texas pretty well, but I had no notion of its size until I campaigned it.
-- Ann Richards

#Texas #Size #Notion

The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it's all we'll need.
-- Ann Richards

#Motivational #Success #Crush

Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics.
-- Ann Richards

#Morning #Eggs #Political

I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back.
-- Ann Richards

#Strong #Feelings #Looks

If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don't, you're simply ducking your responsibilities.
-- Ann Richards

#Selfish #Responsibility #Thinking

I have always had the feeling I could do anything and my dad told me I could. I was in college before I found out he might be wrong.
-- Ann Richards

#Fathers Day #Dad #College

I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.
-- Ann Richards

#Hurt #Funny Friend #Enemy

Teaching was the hardest work I had ever done, and it remains the hardest work I have done to date.
-- Ann Richards

#Education #Teaching #Memorable

I have a real soft spot in my heart for librarians and people who care about books.
-- Ann Richards

#Real #Book #Reading

Cherish your friends and family as if your life depended on it. Because it does.
-- Ann Richards

#Family #Family And Friends #Doe

Learn to enjoy your own company. You are the one person you can count on living with for the rest of your life.
-- Ann Richards

#Inspirational #Enjoy #Company

I've been tested by fire, and the fire lost.
-- Ann Richards

#Fire #Lost

Well, you know my number one cause has always been that women's reproductive health needs to be protected.
-- Ann Richards

#Numbers #Needs #Causes

We're living in a whole new social and economic order with a whole new set of problems and challenges. Old assumptions and old programs don't work in this new society and the more we try to stretch them to make them fit, the more we will be seen as running away from what is reality.
-- Ann Richards

#Running #Reality #Order

Life isn't fair, but government must be,
-- Ann Richards

#Government

I feel very strongly that change is good because it stirs up the system.
-- Ann Richards

#Change Is Good #Feels #Very Strong

I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.
-- Ann Richards

#Tombstone #Thinking #Government

They blame the low income women for ruining the country because they are staying home with their children and not going out to work. They blame the middle income women for ruining the country because they go out to work and do not stay home to take care of their children.
-- Ann Richards

#Country #Children #Home

I had such high expectations of myself. I was going to be the best mother, the best housewife, the best entertainer, the best nurse, you know - what it was, I was going to be the best. And I could never live up to my expectations.
-- Ann Richards

#Mother #Nurse #Expectations

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.
-- Ann Richards

#Country #Believe #Play

People don't know that New York really is just made up of a group of very small neighborhoods.
-- Ann Richards

#New York #People #Groups

Poor George [Bush], he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.
-- Ann Richards

#Feet #Mouths #Politics

You can put lipstick and earrings on a hog and call it Monique, but it's still a pig.
-- Ann Richards

#Pigs #Hog #Stills

I'm against an income tax because all the rich people hire lawyers and accountants to be sure that they don't pay income tax.
-- Ann Richards

#People #Pay #Income

I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.
-- Ann Richards

#Tombstone #House #Want

I think you have to deal with grief in the sense that you have to recognize that you have it, and say that it's OK to have all the sadness.
-- Ann Richards

#Grief #Sadness #Thinking

There is a lot more to this life than just the struggle to make money.
-- Ann Richards

#Life #Money #Struggle

There is a special mystique to Texas. Texans represent many things to the uninitiated: We are bigger than life in our boots and Stetsons, rugged individualists whose two-steppin' has achieved world-wide acclaim, and we were the first to define hospitality.
-- Ann Richards

#Texas #Two #Special

I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression, and missed the great big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew. Leaders who told us when things were tough, and that we would have to sacrifice, and these difficulties might last awhile. They didn't tell us things were hard for us because we were different, or isolated, or special interests. They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose.
-- Ann Richards

#Regret #War #Sacrifice

You bet being funny helps accomplish things. I've always maintained that people don't realize how many brain cells it takes to be funny. And politics ought to be fun -- after baseball it's our next favorite national pastime.
-- Ann Richards

#Baseball #Fun #Cells

Oh, I would probably have raised more hell.
-- Ann Richards

#Hell #Raised

I'm not afraid to shake up the system, and government needs more shaking up than any other system I know.
-- Ann Richards

#Government #Needs #Not Afraid

The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense.
-- Ann Richards

#Smart #Self #Perfect

Ann Richards on How to Be a Good Republican: 1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault. 2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own. 3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.
-- Ann Richards

#Believe #Government #Years

A road to a friend's house is never long.
-- Ann Richards

#Wise #Long #House

One of the most valuable lessons I learned...is that we all have to learn from our mistakes, and we learn from those mistakes a lot more than we learn from the things we succeeded in doing.
-- Ann Richards

#Mistake #Lessons #Valuable

Weight-bearing exercise builds bone density, builds your muscular strength so that you can hold your body up where those bones have a tendency to get weak.
-- Ann Richards

#Exercise #Density #Weight

One of the truths of our time is the hunger deep in people are over the planet for coming into relationship with each other.
-- Ann Richards

#Relationship #People #Hunger

We saw farms go on the auction block while we bought food from foreign countries. Well, that's wrong.
-- Ann Richards

#Country #Block #Cooking

Jesse Jackson is a leader and a teacher who can open our hearts and open our minds and stir our very souls.
-- Ann Richards

#Teacher #Heart #Leader