Political Quotes

“Thank you to my colleague from St. Paul and to all my colleagues from Minnesota. Coming here today, the honor to speak of Jim Oberstar as a Minnesotan, no one quite personifies what it means to be Minnesotan as Jim Oberstar--a man of quiet passion; a work ethic that knows no limits; a sense of humor in the face of tragedy that can lift others; a man of compassion; someone who exemplifies the very fiber of how we see ourselves as people of the prairie, people of the Iron Range, that can withstand the cold winters and the hot summers. But something that Jim Oberstar I think taught me more than anything else, and today, coming to talk about him, it's never about looking backward; it's always about looking forward. Someone who spent their life to create a better tomorrow, a champion of the future and a champion of progress. No one in this Congress has had a more profound impact on me as a high school social studies and history teacher than Jim Oberstar, someone who understands the importance of history for what it means. It's not just a theoretical exercise to see the past. It's about understanding how to take those lessons, how to take the words that work and didn't work, and to move forward to make a better tomorrow. There's nothing we did in this Congress that dealt with Jim Oberstar that didn't have an understanding of that; that didn't connect what happened in the past to what could be in the future.…”