... black women have always found that in the social order of things we're the least likely to be believed--by anyone. Joycelyn Elders More Quotes by Joycelyn Elders More Quotes From Joycelyn Elders I feel that we can't educate children who are not healthy, and we can't keep them healthy if they're not educated. There has to be a marriage between health and education. You can't learn if your mind is full of unhealthy images from daily life and confusion about right and wrong. Joycelyn Elders healthy confusion children You can't educate a child who isn't healthy, and you can't keep a child healthy who isn't educated. Joycelyn Elders educated healthy children Health is more than absence of disease; it is about economics, education, environment, empowerment, and community. The health and well being of the people is critically dependent upon the health system that serves them. It must provide the best possible health with the least disparities and respond equally well to everyone. Joycelyn Elders empowerment community people It is often easier for our children to obtain a gun than it is to find a good school. Joycelyn Elders gun children school The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS - or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day. Joycelyn Elders cancer weed pain We've tried ignorance for a thousand years. It's time we try education. Joycelyn Elders ignorance trying years We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children. Joycelyn Elders choices worry children We know that more than seventy to eighty percent of women masturbate, and ninety percent of men masturbate, and the rest lie. Joycelyn Elders masturbation men lying I've heard Eric Clapner, ... I think it was a wonderful thing that Eric Clapner the musician did...So I think that's the wonderful part about it, but listen - I like Eric Clapner! Joycelyn Elders humorous stupid thinking Health is more than the absence of disease. Health is about jobs and employment, education, the environment, and all of those things that go into making us healthy. Joycelyn Elders employment healthy jobs ... if you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter--you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life. Joycelyn Elders ignorant morning children You can't educate people that are not healthy. But you certainly can't keep them healthy if they're not educated. Joycelyn Elders educated healthy people Masturbation never got anybody pregnant, does not make anybody go crazy, and what we're about is preventing HIV in our bright young people. Joycelyn Elders crazy sex people I'm against abstinence programs because I really consider "abstinence only" child abuse. Joycelyn Elders only-child abuse children The best contraceptive in the world is a good education. Joycelyn Elders good-education sexuality world We know that there are several predisposing factors to gun violence: poverty, lack of education, lack of good parenting, lack of jobs, living in an environment where violence is seen every day, all the time. And children being born to children are likely to have all of these predisposing factors. Joycelyn Elders gun jobs children Once I had a professor say to me, "You know you have as much education as a lot of white people." I answered, "Doctor, I have more education than most white people." Joycelyn Elders doctors teaching white Guns kill more teenagers than the other big killers - heart disease, cancer, and AIDS - combined. Joycelyn Elders cancer teenager heart Homicide, often involving guns, is a disease that is the leading cause of death for young black men, and the second-leading cause of death for all people aged fifteen to twenty-four. That makes it the leading health issue, particularly when guns are used in combination with drugs and alcohol. And the statistics show that is most often the case. Joycelyn Elders issues gun men If you can't control your reproduction, you can't control your life. Joycelyn Elders reproduction ifs