My Day (Primary source)
Collections of Roosevelt’s syndicated newspaper column written six days weekly from 1935-1962, offering accessible, diary-like observations on daily life, politics, civil rights, and current events that reached millions of American readers.
“In the democracies of the world, the passion for freedom of speech and of thought is always accentuated when there is an effort anywhere to keep ideas away from people and to prevent them from making their own decisions. One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education and thus make it impossible for them to understand what is going on in the world as a whole.
In the case of Germany, however, the people have always had the tools of learning. They have been a highly educated nation. Hitler had to use other methods, and he chose to go back to the practices of medieval days and burn the books whose philosophies were opposed to his. He knew that if these thoughts reached the people, they might stir up unrest and opposition to his own regime.
The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books, but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted. Hitler used all of these methods and gained his ends within Germany for a time. In the end, and that end seems to be drawing closer every day, the people whom Hitler has enslaved will have to come in contact again with the world of free expression and thought, then Hitler will have to face the judgment of his own people.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“There never has been security. No man has ever known what he would meet around the next corner; if life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary source“If the use of leisure time is confined to looking at TV for a few extra hours every day, we will deteriorate as a people.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary source“Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary source“Example is the best lesson there is.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary sourceMore quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt →
“Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I’d had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day, and at the end of the day—if you live long enough—like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary sourceEnslavement Education Knowledge