Top 100 Hubert H. Humphrey Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Never give up on anybody.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Featured in: Giving Up Quotes, Quitting Quotes, Quotes About Giving

2. “Never give in and never give up.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

Featured in: Not Giving Up Quotes

3. “The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

4. “You can’t hoot with the owls and then soar with the eagles.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

5. “More progress results from the violent execution of an imperfect plan than the perfection of a plan to violently execute.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

6. “The good old days were never that good, believe me. The good new days are today, and better days are coming tomorrow. Our greatest songs are still unsung.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

7. “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

8. “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

9. “The way we treat our children in the dawn of their lives and the way we treat our elderly in the twilight of their lives is a measure of the quality of a nation.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

10. “Peace is not passive, it is active. Peace is not appeasement, it is strength. Peace does not ‘happen,’ it requires work.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

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

— Hubert H. Humphrey

12. “Life’s unfairness is not irrevocable; we can help balance the scales for others, if not always for ourselves.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

13. “To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

14. “The road to freedom, here and everywhere, begins in the classroom.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

15. “It is not what they take away from you that counts. It’s what you do with what you have left.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

16. “There is a great deal of difference between living and surviving. You can survive in debauchery, even in sickness and despair. But you live with a spirit of vitality and a spirit of participation, of being wanted, and having something to contribute.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

17. “The gap between the rich and the poor is the most dangerous threat to world peace we have.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

18. “Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

19. “Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

20. “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

21. “Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

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

— Hubert H. Humphrey

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

— Hubert H. Humphrey

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

— Hubert H. Humphrey

25. “What we need are critical lovers of America – patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

26. “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

27. “My favorite sandwich is peanut butter, baloney, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

28. “Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

29. “When the dignity of one person is denied, all of us are denied.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

30. “You can always debate about what you should have done. The question is what are you going to do?”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

31. “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

32. “Our greatest songs are still unsung.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

33. “It is always a risk to speak to the press: they are likely to report what you say.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

34. “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

35. “Just be what you are and speak from your guts and heart – it’s all a person has.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

36. “To be realistic today is to be visionary. To be realistic is to be starry-eyed.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

37. “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

38. “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

39. “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

40. “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

41. “Until racial justice and freedom is a reality in this land, our union will remain profoundly imperfect.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

42. “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

43. “Surely anyone who has ever been elected to public office understands that one commodity above all others, namely the trust and confidence of the people, is fundamental in maintaining a free and open political system.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

44. “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

45. “My philosophy has always been that benefits should percolate up rather than trickle down.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

46. “American public opinion is like an ocean, it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

47. “In life it isn’t what you’ve lost, it’s what you’ve got left that counts.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

48. “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

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

— Hubert H. Humphrey

50. “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