Political Figure Quotes

Smearing good people like Lauchlin Currie [former administrative assistant to President Roosevelt], Alger Hiss and others is, I think, unforgiveable... Anyone knowing Mr. Currie or Mr. Hiss, who are the two people whom I happen to know fairly well, would not need any denial on their part to know they are not Communists. Their records prove it.

If the use of leisure time is confined to looking at TV for a few extra hours every day, we will deteriorate as a people.

All big things in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.

To appear to be on the inside and know more than others about what is going on is a great temptation for most people. It is a rare person who is willing to seem to know less than he does ... Somehow, people seem to feel that it is belittling to their importance not to know more than other people.

True hospitality consists of giving the best of yourself to your guests.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude

Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are and then make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else's lie, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.

If you take stands in any way and people feel that you have any success in - a following, why those who disagree with you are going to feel very strongly about it.

We are given in our newspapers and on TV and radio exactly what we, the public, insist on having, and this very frequently is mediocre information and mediocre entertainment.

The hard part of loving is that one has to learn so often to let go of those we love, so they can do things, so they can grow, so they can return to us with an even richer, deeper love.

There is a desire for progress in the hearts of all men, and it is the sense of frustration and inability to move forward that brings violent revolution.

When you build a memorial, you build it not because the person wanted it, but for the future -- for generations who didn't know the man and didn't know the era in which he lived.

Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes over night. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.

We have reached a point today where labor-saving devices are good only when they do not throw the worker out of his job.

...no matter how avid they themselves may be for praise and appreciation, people are often niggardly in giving it to others, however merited it is.

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run, it is easier.

You never know anyone until you marry them.

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed.

A number of people still think of the United States as being overwhelmingly English, Protestant, and white. This erroneous idea influences their whole outlook.

Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people.

Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

The kind of propaganda that some of the religious groups, aided and abetted by the opposition, put forth in that campaign utterly disgusted me. If I needed anything to show me what prejudice can do to the intelligence of human beings that campaign was the best lesson I could have had.

I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.

Anger is one letter short of danger.

I'm intensely anxious to preserve the freedom that gives you the right to think and to act and to talk as you please. That I think is essential to happiness and the life of the people.

Every time you meet a situation you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.

To some of us, hunger was more academic than real, but we must try to develop the ability to feel the urgency of such a situation.

Work is always an antidote to depression.

It seems to me that it is the basic right of any human being to work.

I have never believed that war settled anything satisfactorily, but I am not entirely sure that some times there are certain situations in the world such as we have in actuality when a country is worse off when it does not go to war for its principles than if it went to war.

Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

One of the first things we must get rid of is the idea that democracy is tantamount to capitalism.

When you know to laugh and when to look upon things as too absurd to take seriously, the other person is ashamed to carry through even if he was serious about it.

Organize first for knowledge, first with the object of making us know ourselves as a nation, for we have to do that before we canbe of value to other nations of the world and then organize to accomplish the things that you decide to want. Anddon't make decisions with the interest of youth alone before you. Make your decisions because they are good for the nation as a whole.

Comparison is the thief of all joy.

It's your life-but only if you make it so.

Every age is an unknown country.

A woman has, first of all, her duties in their own home, and there are many women particularly when they're young, who can do an active job in their community like being a mayor, but who cannot go to Washington or Albany or wherever the capital of the state is. There are others who can, can leave home, whose children are older and so forth. I think it all is a personal decision.

We all grow older and we all have to live with ourselves.

If quitting smoking seems hard right now, it is exactly what you should start doing

At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want... for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war.

Your ambition should be to get as much life out of living as you possibly can, as much enjoyment, as much interest, as much experience, as much understanding. Not simply be what is generally called a 'success.'

When you look fear in the face, you are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'

Enjoy every minute you have with those you love, my dear, for no one can take joy that is past away from you. It will be there in your heart to live on when the dark days come.

Choose a challenge instead of competence

Beautiful old people are works of art.

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart

Before we can make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

The most important word in the English language is hope.

The freedom of man, I contend, is the freedom to eat.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

Today is the oldest you've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again.

I was perfectly certain that I had nothing to offer of an individual nature and that my only chance of doing my duty as the wife of a public official was to do exactly as the majority of women were doing.