Daily Inspiration Quote by Edward James Olmos

Olmos is doing a delicate bit of cultural triage: praising two women who became public property while refusing the cheap comfort of canonizing them. The line starts with “You know,” a conversational softener that signals he’s entering a charged zone - Hillary Clinton and Princess Diana are lightning rods, not neutral examples. By pairing them, he collapses the usual political/celebrity divide and points at the shared mechanism underneath: modern fame turns labor, empathy, and visibility into a kind of moral performance.

“Gives of herself” is intentionally vague, a phrase that flatters without itemizing. That vagueness is the point. With Clinton it can mean policy work, endurance, and the grinding professionalism of public service; with Diana it can mean affect, touch, and the iconography of compassion. Both forms of giving were amplified by cameras and expectation. Olmos is acknowledging the sacrifice while hinting at the transactional nature of the audience’s gratitude: we reward women for selflessness, then demand more of it.

“But they are not saints” lands as a corrective to a culture that swings between worship and punishment. It resists two familiar narratives at once: the conservative caricature of Clinton as purely calculating, and the sentimental myth of Diana as spotless martyr. The subtext is permission to be human in public - to be ambitious, strategic, flawed, complicated - without having your worthiness hinge on purity. In the 1990s/2000s media ecosystem that made both women symbols bigger than their choices, Olmos is warning against the craving for sainthood that ultimately deforms the people we claim to admire.