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.

This leads to a question - if a great many people are for a certain project, is it necessarily right? If the vast majority is for it, is it even more certainly right? This, to be sure, is one of the tricky points of democracy. The minority often turns out to be right, and though one believes in the efficacy of the democratic process, one has also to recognize that the demand of the many for a particular project at a particular time may mean only disaster.

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.

I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen.

The accusation that I am a woman is incontrovertible.

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

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.