Helen Gahagan Douglas Quotes

#1. Men never would share power with women willingly. If we wanted it, we would have to take it.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#2. There is no danger is letting people have their say ... There is a danger when you try to stop them from saying it.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#3. A vigorous democracy a democracy in which there are freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech would never succumb to communism or any other ism.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#4. If the national security is involved, anything goes. There are no rules. There are people so lacking in roots about what is properand what is improper that they don't know there's anything wrong in breaking into the headquarters of the opposition party.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#5. If we pursue the arms race no other problem will be solved.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#6. The first step toward liberation of any group is to use the power in hand ... And the power in hand is the vote.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#7. The discrepancy between American ideals and American practice - between our aims and what we actually do - creates a moral dry rot which eats away at the foundations of our democratic faith.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#8. The ... irrational fear of communism is being deliberately used in many quarters to blind us to our real problems.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#9. You cannot barter security for freedom, or freedom for security.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#10. You can't prove you're an American by waving Old Glory.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#11. I know the force women can exert in directing the course of events.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#12. Politicians aren't any more wicked than other citizens but the situation in which they are placed warps their judgment.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#13. We cannot legislate equality but we can legislate ... equal opportunity for all.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#14. Democracy cannot long survive when the people permit their lives to be dominated - economically or politically - by a powerful few.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#15. Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#16. Such pip-squeaks as Nixon and McCarthy are trying to get us so frightened of Communism that we'll be afraid to turn out the lights at night.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#17. To be free you must afford freedom to your neighbor, regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin, and that sometimes, for some, is very difficult.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#18. Nothing can be controlled by one country today; nothing.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#19. Freedom is not won on the battlefields. The chance for freedom is won there. The final battle is won or lost in our hearts and minds.

Helen Gahagan Douglas