Millicent Fenwick Quotes

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.

The only people who would be in government are those who care more about people than they do about power.

If there is one thing the past years have taught us, it is the importance of a keen and high sense of honor in those who handle our governmental affairs.

Influence comes out of the work that you've done and the things you've stood for. Influence and power shouldn't be given to just anybody who wants them.

When you're old, everything you do is sort of a miracle.

Party organization matters. When the door of a smoke-filled room is closed, there's hardly ever a woman inside.

Economics is not a science, in the sense that a policy can be repeatedly applied under similar conditions and will repeatedly produce similar results.

The business of government is justice.

I have come to believe that one thing people cannot bear is a sense of injustice. Poverty, cold, even hunger are more bearable than injustice.

Everyone in America seems to be joining an organization of some kind, and in Congress one hears from them all.

What we do stems directly from what we believe.

A code of behavior is an inevitable part of life in any community, and if we hadn't inherited ours, we should have had to invent one.

Good behavior is everybody's business, and good taste can be everyone's goal.

Wherever injustice occurs, we all need to be concerned.

Like life and people, it is full of paradoxes. Etiquette is based on tradition, and yet it can change. Its ramifications are trivialities, but its roots are in great principles.

You may never reach a solution, but you're never absolved from the responsibility of trying.

One of the keys to our present definition of good taste is that it is better to be kind than to be 'correct.' There is no situation in which it is smart to be nasty.

The essence of good taste is a sense of values, and a sense of values is the pivotal point of good living.

Women are on the outside when the door to the smoke-filled room is closed.

There is hardly a facet of life that is now free of some sort of federal action.

The curious fascination in this job [U.S. representative] is the illusion that either you are being useful or you could be -- and that's so tempting.