Helen Gahagan Douglas Quotes

In trying to make something new, half the undertaking lies in discovering whether it can be done. Once it has been established that it can, duplication is inevitable.

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

Freedom is not won on the battlefields. The chance for freedom is won there. The final battle is won or lost in our hearts and minds.

Democracy cannot long survive when the people permit their lives to be dominated - economically or politically - by a powerful few.

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by how one thinks and acts.

To be free you must afford freedom to your neighbor, regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin, and that sometimes, for some, is very difficult.

Politicians aren't any more wicked than other citizens but the situation in which they are placed warps their judgment.

I never felt I left the stage.

There is no danger is letting people have their say. ... There is a danger when you try to stop them from saying it.

The discrepancy between American ideals and American practice - between our aims and what we actually do - creates a moral dry rot which eats away at the foundations of our democratic faith.

If you tell me that there are obstacles in the way of your ambition that make it impossible to pursue, then I know it's not a real ambition. There are always obstacles. The 'perversity of events,' as someone once called it, is always ready to lick us. Events are never right for achieving what we most want to achieve. If this were not so, there would be no real fun in being 17 -- or even in being alive.

I realized that public affairs were also my affairs. I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which there would no longer be any stages for actors to act on.

Such pip-squeaks as Nixon and McCarthy are trying to get us so frightened of Communism that we'll be afraid to turn out the lights at night.

men never would share power with women willingly. If we wanted it, we would have to take it.

If the national security is involved, anything goes. There are no rules. There are people so lacking in roots about what is properand what is improper that they don't know there's anything wrong in breaking into the headquarters of the opposition party.

The first step toward liberation of any group is to use the power in hand... And the power in hand is the vote.

The ... irrational fear of communism is being deliberately used in many quarters to blind us to our real problems.

If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

Nothing can be controlled by one country today; nothing.

We cannot legislate equality but we can legislate ... equal opportunity for all.

When a marriage works, nothing on earth can take its place

I realized that public affairs were also my affairs.

if we pursue the arms race no other problem will be solved.

You cannot barter security for freedom, or freedom for security.

A vigorous democracy a democracy in which there are freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech would never succumb to communism or any other ism.

Character isn't inherited.

I know the force women can exert in directing the course of events.

You can't prove you're an American by waving Old Glory.