Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
America's objective today should be to try to make herself the best possible mirror of democracy that she can. The people of the world can see what happens here. They watch us to see what we are going to do and how well we can do it. We are giving them the only possible picture of democracy that we can: the picture as it works in actual practice. This is the only way other peoples can see for themselves how it works; and can determine for themselves whether this thing is good in itself, whether it is better than they have, better than what other political and economic systems offer them.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962, First Lady (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), U. S. Delegate to the United Nations, Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1961
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was condemning a practice whereby some nations would have freedoms guaranteed by their constitutions or laws, but the totalitarian government would “suspend” the constitutional guarantees in times of “national emergencies.” Yew was in opposition at the time he made this famous statement. 30 years later when he was the Prime Minister, he had a different view. See {585201}.
Because democracies have a higher standard of entitlement to rights and freedom and there is more freedom of expression, shortcomings in democracies produce extensive criticism of the society and government, whereas in tyrannies, civil or theocratic, the higher standards are not there nor is criticism customary or even allowed.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat and activist. She served as the First Lady of the United States from March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving First Lady of the United States. Roosevelt served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
