The home is a woman's natural background.... From the beginning I tried to have the policy of the store reflect as nearly as it was possible in the commercial world, those standards of comfort and grace which are apparent in a lovely home.
Hortense OdlumNot rarely, and this is especially true of wives and mothers, the motive behind assuming a disproportionate share of work and responsibility is completely unselfish. We want to protect, to spare those of whom we are fond. We forget that, regardless of the motive, the results of such action are almost always destructive and unproductive.
Hortense OdlumLiving each day as a preparation for the next is an exciting way to live. Looking forward to something is much more fun than looking back at somethingand much more constructive. If we can prepare ourselves so that we never have to think, 'Oh, if I had only known, if I had only been ready,' our lives can really be the great adventure we so passionately want them to be.
Hortense OdlumIf a person goes to his job with a firm determination to give of himself the best of which he is capable, that job no matter what it is takes on dignity and importance.
Hortense Odlum... a business career for a woman and her need for a woman's life as wife and mother, are not enemies at all, unless we make them so, but may be the closest and most co-operative friends and supporter of each other.
Hortense OdlumA completely indifferent attitude toward clothes in women seems to me to be an admission of inferiority, of perverseness, or of alack of realization of her place in the world as a woman. Or--what is even more hopeless and pathetic--it's an admission that she has given up, that she is beaten, and refuses longer to stand up to the world.
Hortense Odlum