There are several beliefs to which I hold strongly and by which my life is guided. They are interwoven with each other, and they have grown and changed over the more than half century in which I’ve lived. First, I believe with all my heart in people. I think most people are far more intelligent and far kinder to their fellow men than they’re usually thought to be. Like most of us who stay alive at all, I’ve had my share of trouble, and I’m glad of that. If I hadn’t, I couldn’t really savor and appreciate the good things of life. And I’m glad of it also because over the years I’ve discovered that when trouble hits, there is proof all over again of how truly wonderful people are. I’ll never forget saying to a friend once, when I’d been having a rough time spiritually and materially: “I think life is really wonderful.” And hearing her say, “You do?” I suddenly realized that she was one of those who didn’t understand that the goodness of other people can keep anybody from desperation.
I believe that a well thought-out philosophy of life is something individual which grows and changes with maturity, but is there from the beginning of growing up. It means to me that I have a sure knowledge of what’s important to me and what’s totally unimportant. In relation to things which are important to me, I aim for perfection, always—never, however, losing sight of the fact that I am human and I will seldom ever make it. I have always to remember that nobody else’s basic philosophy is exactly the same as mine, and that that’s good. I believe and I try very hard to live by this belief: that other people are entitled to express and live by their own lights, even though I may disagree with them entirely.
My favorite job is my home and my family, and I find my philosophy entirely applicable in that area, not only in the matter of living with people and getting along with them, but in the mechanics of running my house. When a woman works for pay and thus does two full-time jobs, something has to give here and there. I would, for instance, rather put off mopping under the beds than miss going to dinner with friends. I believe that it is my privilege to choose what gives way as unimportant to me so that I may do what I find most important.
I believe that simplicity is the keynote of a good life. This applies to the way I live and behave and think. True simplicity is achieved, I think, through trying out all sorts of complicated—frequently false—ways of doing and arriving, in the end, at the simplest way, which is unfailingly the best.
Last of all, I must express my great belief in the young. One of the changes in belief through which I and many of my generation lived was this: I thought after the First World War that if we could persuade enough of our contemporaries, and our children as they came along, to say that they’d never fight in any war, there never would be another. As the late 30s approach, I realized I was wrong, and I thought: “What have we done to our children?” having brought them up according to what we no longer believe. “Will they be lost?” But they were not lost at all. I believe that the newly grownup and the almost grownup of today are the best generation yet.
And that leads me to the foundation of my beliefs: that though it may sometimes be almost invisible, there is always progress. When I’m discouraged, which isn’t often, I can, if I put my mind to it, always find sure signs that the world, and I as a tiny part of it, are doing better every day.