30 quotes
Who is that tall, thin young man with the pince-nez, who seems constantly to be looking down his nose at people?
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I thought witch-hunting was a thing of the past, but that's what this 'red-baiting' immigration squad is doing. They see communists behind every foreign name.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
From this day forward, I will be a Doer of the Word and not as Hearer only, whenever and wherever I see the need.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
The day I need an armed bodyguard is the day I admit my job's too much for a woman.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
Organized labor has always had one of its own people as Secretary and will expect to continue to have. I do not qualify.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
We must devise plans that will not merely alleviate the ills of today, but will prevent, as far as it is humanly possible to do so, their recurrence in the future.
Radio address (1935)
I shall always be most grateful to him. He made me rediscover that I had a mind. It had lain fallow, I am afraid, since my Mount Holyoke days.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I'm the last leaf on the New Deal tree, and I think perhaps I've clung here too long already.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
His arrogance isn't what disturbs me so much as his self-centeredness... He doesn't seem to care about anything that doesn't concern him personally.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I will fight for it up to the Supreme Court, if necessary... If the Industrial Commission does not have the right to make essential safety laws, it might as well close up shop!
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
[Florence Kelley's speech] first opened my mind to the necessity for and the possibility of the work which became my vocation.
A Woman Unafraid (1993)
Harry Bridges is a card-carrying Communist, Franklin, but that's the single black mark against him and isn't illegal. I just don't believe a man should be punished for what he believes or thinks.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I think any compulsion other than moral compulsion is wrong. Let disputes be settled by public opinion, not statute.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
We were in a terrible situation... Banks were closing. The economic life of the country was almost at a standstill.
A Woman Unafraid (1993)
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.
The Roosevelt I Knew (1946)
I never really saw really poor people before... My parents always told me nobody had to be poor—that they wouldn't be if they weren't shiftless or didn't spend everything they earned on drink. I don't understand how Mama and Papa could be so mistaken! ...Yes, I guess I do.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
Just let the people know that they matter to you, that your plan is to mobilize the government to help them. If you can give them hope that things will be better, they'll bless you, Franklin.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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.
The Roosevelt I Knew (1946)
It is all-important to keep the human touch in whatever we do... This is the machine age... and we should make machines work for us—but let us not act like robots ourselves!
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
The mothers don't want to bring their children [in for child labor at a vegetable cannery in Auborn, NY]—they need to. ...That need will never cease until employers pay decent wages! There ought to be a law assuring minimum pay, as well as one limiting hours worked!
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)