Frances Perkins Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

The quality of his being one with his people, of having no artificial or natural barriers between him and them, made it possible for him to be a leader without ever being or thinking of being a dictator.

Frances Perkins
But with the slow menace of a glacier, depression came on. No one had any measure of its progress; no one had any plan for stopping it. Everyone tried to get out of its way.

Frances Perkins
Most of man's problems upon this planet, in the long history of the race, have been met and solved either partially or as a whole by experiment based on common sense and carried out with courage.

Frances Perkins
He didn't like concentrated responsibility. Agreement with other people who he thought were good, right minded, and trying to do the right thing by the world was almost as necessary to him as air to breathe.

Frances Perkins
Our idea of what constitutes social good has advanced with the procession of the ages, from those desperate times when just to keep body and soul together was an achievement, to the great present when "good" includes an agreeable, stable civilization accessible to all, the opportunity of each to develop his particular genius and the privilege of mutual usefulness.

Frances Perkins
We all take refuge in the optimism which is typical of this great creative nation. Every situation has found us unprepared.

Frances Perkins
The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.

Frances Perkins
It is not the nature of man, as I see it, ever to be quite satisfied with what he has in life.... Contentment tends to breed laxity, but a healthy discontent keeps us alert to the changing needs of our time.

Frances Perkins
Out of our first century of national life we evolved the ethical principle that it was not right or just that an honest and industrious man should live and die in misery. He was entitled to some degree of sympathy and security. Our conscience declared against the honest workman's becoming a pauper, but our eyes told us that he very often did.

Frances Perkins