Hortense McQuarrie Odlum (July 1891 – January 12, 1970) was the first woman president of Bonwit Teller Department Store in New York City and the wife of financier Floyd Odlum.
One of the greatest satisfactions one can ever have, comes from the knowledge that he can do some one thing superlatively well.
Our chaotic economic situation has convinced so many of our young people that there is no room for them. They become uncertain andrestless and morbid; they grab at false promises, embrace false gods and judge things by treacherous values. Their insecurity makes them believe that tomorrow doesn't matter and the ineffectualness of their lives makes them deny the ideals which we of an older generation acknowledged.
How many wives have been forced by the death of well-intentioned but too protective husbands to face reality late in life, bewildered and frightened because they were strangers to it!
Not rarely, and this is especially true of wives and mothers, the motive behind assuming a disproportionate share of work and responsibility is completely unselfish. We want to protect, to spare those of whom we are fond. We forget that, regardless of the motive, the results of such action are almost always destructive and unproductive.
. . . business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,--if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.
If a person goes to his job with a firm determination to give of himself the best of which he is capable, that job no matter what it is takes on dignity and importance.
With only one life to live we can't afford to live it only for itself. Somehow we must each for himself, find the way in which we can make our individual lives fit into the pattern of all the lives which surround it. We must establish our own relationships to the whole. And each must do it in his own way, using his own talents, relying on his own integrity and strength, climbing his own road to his own summit.
Persons who insist to themselves that under one set of conditions only can they lead interesting and satisfying lives lay themselves open to bitter disappointments and frustrations.
It seemed pathetic and terrible to me and it still does, that men and women work eight hours a day at jobs that bring them no joy, no reward save a few dollars.
Living each day as a preparation for the next is an exciting way to live. Looking forward to something is much more fun than looking back at somethingand much more constructive. If we can prepare ourselves so that we never have to think, 'Oh, if I had only known, if I had only been ready,' our lives can really be the great adventure we so passionately want them to be.
Oh, if I had only known, if I had only been ready, our lives can really be the great adventure we so passionately want them to be.
The home is a woman's natural background. . . . From the beginning I tried to have the policy of the store reflect as nearly as it was possible in the commercial world, those standards of comfort and grace which are apparent in a lovely home.
As unmarried business women we must constantly use our opportunities in business in such a way that we are prepared for the marriage which may be ours tomorrow.
No life, if it is properly realized, is without cosmic importance.
A completely indifferent attitude toward clothes in women seems to me to be an admission of inferiority, of perverseness, or of alack of realization of her place in the world as a woman. Or--what is even more hopeless and pathetic--it's an admission that she has given up, that she is beaten, and refuses longer to stand up to the world.
This is the great truth life has to teach us. . . that gratification of our individual desires and expression of our personal preferences without consideration for their effect upon others brings in the end nothing but ruin and devastation.
. . . a business career for a woman and her need for a woman's life as wife and mother, are not enemies at all, unless we make them so, but may be the closest and most co-operative friends and supporter of each other.
Adventure, without it, why live?