Donna Shalala Quotes

• You go to college not only for the latest knowledge but also to meet people from different backgrounds. That’s the genius of the American higher-education system compared with the Europeans’. We don’t simply skim the elite.

  Donna Shalala

• You don’t want to destroy the energy that comes out of a campaign.

  Donna Shalala

• You can’t have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they’re not going to hear them in America. I believe it’s part of their education.

  Donna Shalala

• What you really remember at the beginning was that you have to throw a budget together. We made some terrible mistakes at the beginning in my own budget that took us at least a year to catch up on.

  Donna Shalala

• We need to drive down requirements for the schools. In the 19th century, we increased the quality of the schools by higher education saying, ‘You can’t come in unless you have these skills, unless you’ve taken these courses.’ We did that in Wisconsin when I was there, it helped to transform the secondary school system.

  Donna Shalala

• We know the parental support, community support, makes a difference. It’s not just the metrics of testing and putting pressure on the schools and on the teachers.

  Donna Shalala

• We have to mainstream everybody. No matter what their circumstances when they were growing up. Part of that is knowing that after they’re finished with school, everybody in this country gets up and goes to work.

  Donna Shalala

• We have not yet concluded that needle-exchange programs do not encourage drug use.

  Donna Shalala

• We can’t afford as a nation – not because of money but because of our social fabric – to have large numbers of people who are not working.

  Donna Shalala

• We are living longer, and we need to live better.

  Donna Shalala

• The government is fully capable of delivering services. Even complex services.

  Donna Shalala

• The economic dimension is very clear. I was at a dinner party, a mother got up, who’s a very distinguished scientist, and said she had to get home and help her daughter with her homework. The two waiters, their faces changed. They were working their second jobs, they couldn’t get home to help their kids with homework.

  Donna Shalala

• The dog doesn’t know the difference between Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so I have to walk the dog early those days too.

  Donna Shalala

• Sure, it is apparent that presidents are looking at polls, but they are also stepping up on issues. President Clinton stepped up on tobacco. He shaped the polls on the tobacco issue.

  Donna Shalala

• S*x education has to do with what’s in people’s head.

  Donna Shalala

• Our young people are out on the streets looking for parties, a place to dance, looking for a scene. No institutions are providing them with alternatives, fun things to do that don’t necessarily have alcohol at the center.

  Donna Shalala

• It’s coaches. It’s people that are involved in kids’ lives at every level, and it’s supporting their parents. Their parents need better jobs. So that they can help them with their homework and don’t have to work two jobs.

  Donna Shalala

• In fairy tales, the children are saved by caring adults. We need more caring adults in the lives of our children.

  Donna Shalala

• In every community, whether large or small, there are people who lead in their community in easy and difficult times.

  Donna Shalala

• I’ve spent my whole life with people underestimating me.

  Donna Shalala

Donna Shalala (38)

Birth:	14th February, 1941
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Educator, Politician

About

Donna Edna Shalala was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She is an American politician and educator. She is the former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. She was the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1988 to 1993. She was the president of the University of Miami, Florida, from 2001 through 2015. She received her bachelor's degree in 1962 from Western College for Women. In 1970, she earned a Ph.D. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

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