'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.' - Anne Frank

Anne Frank's father, Otto, speaks to the BBC

The 13-year-old Jewish girl Anne Frank has inspired millions with her optimistic diaries amid Nazi oppression in the Netherlands. In 1976, her father—the sole survivor among Anne's immediate family—showed the world the original copy of one of Anne's three diaries in this BBC interview. Hear why Otto decided to publish the diaries and how that decision changed his life.

'Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.'

- Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968)

'One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world'

- Activist and author Malala Yousafzai (1997-present)

'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.'

-Charles Dickens (1812-1870), in "Our Mutual Friend"

'If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time.'

- Activist Dorothy Height (1912-2010)

'Most of man's problems upon this planet, in the long history of the race, have been met and solved either partially or as a whole by experiment based on common sense and carried out with courage.'

-Frances Perkins (1880-1965), first female member of US Cabinet

A quote by award-winning actor Tom Hanks

"We are still in the position of waking up and having a choice. Do I make the world better today somehow, or do I not bother?"

'I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.'

- Modern nursing innovator Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

1928: A quote from Amelia Earhart

"Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting."

'Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.'

- Jane Addams (1860-1935)

Polish chemist and physicist Marie Curie (1867–1934) on learning

“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

'The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts.'

- Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

'The best way to make a dream come true is to wake up.'

- Fashion icon Anna Wintour (1949 – present)

A quote by Florence Nightingale

"Poetry and imagination begin life."

'Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.'

- Judy Garland

'When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.'

- Author Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)

'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

- Author Jack London (1876 - 1916)

'An idea is salvation by imagination.'

- US architect Frank Lloyd Wright

'Sometimes opportunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.'

- Actress Julie Andrews (1935 - present)

A quote by scientist Nikola Tesla

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result ... His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way."

'The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.'

- Marine biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

'Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.'

- Maya Angelou

Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 speech framed World War II as a global fight for universal rights

Eleven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt outlined four fundamental freedoms that, in his words, people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy—speech, worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

'No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.'

-Author Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

'You will never feel proud of your work if you find no joy within it; your best work is always joyful work.'

- Stevie Wonder (1950-present)

'I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.'

- Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

'Keep working on a plan. Make no little plans. Make the biggest one you can think of, and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.'

- President Harry Truman (1884-1972)

'When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.''

- Mister Rogers (1928-2003)

'We are on the move now ... Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom ...'

- Martin Luther King Jr. at the conclusion of the five-day, 54-mile march

'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.'

- Author James Baldwin (1924–1987)

'Too often we participate in the globalization of indifference. May we strive instead to live global solidarity.'

- Pope Francis (1936 - 2025)

'Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.'

- Harper Lee from "To Kill a Mockingbird"

'I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.'

- American novelist Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

'Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.'

- Suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

'Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.'

- Pablo Picasso

'You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.'

- Musician and activist Joan Baez (1941-present)

1975: Betty Ford, remarks at the International Women's Year Conference

"Change, by its very nature, is threatening but it is also often productive."

'Pioneering is never done in front of cheerleaders urging on a roaring grandstand of popular approval.'

- "Star Trek" actor George Takei (1937-present)

'In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.'

-Poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)

'Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a persons own mind—than on the externals in the world.'

- George Washington (1732-1799)

'Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.'

- Polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk (1914–1995)

'Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.'

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

'Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.'

-Author and poet Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929)

'A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.'

- Jackie Robinson, the first Black MLB player (1919-1972)

One hundred ways to improve your life without really trying

Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …

'A word after a word after a word is power.'

- Author Margaret Atwood (1939-present)

'Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.'

- Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

'Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.'

- Author Philip Roth (1933-2018)

Joan Didion's 1975 commencement speech at UCR encouraged graduates to think outside of themselves

Filled with many widely circulated quotes, the talk addresses people's tendency to focus only on their personal ideologies and perceptions of the world. Didion advocates for being an active participant in the world, rather than existing only in our own bubbles.