Eleanor Roosevelt
diplomat, writer, autobiographer, politician, women's rights activist, journalist, peace activist, human rights defender, columnist
Read on Wikipedia1884 – 1962
All Quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt
“Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.”
“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
“No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.”
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
“Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”
“Campaign behavior for wives: Always be on time. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Lean back in the parade car so everybody can see the president.”
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
“When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.”
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.”
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”
“My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
“My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.”
“You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.”
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
“Oh! I want to put my arms around you, I ache to hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort. I look at it and think she does love me or I wouldn't be wearing it!”
“A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be "damned if you do, and damned if you don't."”
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
“Understanding is a two-way street.”
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.”
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'”
“It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”
“I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
“We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.”
“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”
“To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times — The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.”
“You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.”
“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.”
“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
“I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.”
“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
“When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”
“I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.”
“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”
“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.”
“Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”
“Understanding is a two-way street.”
“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
“Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.”
“You get more joy out of the giving to others, and should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give.”
“My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.”
“I think I have a good deal of my Uncle Theodore in me, because I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.”
“Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.”
“I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: "No good in a bed, but fine against a wall".”
“Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.”
“Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior.”
“Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”
“The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.”
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.”
“The purpose of life...is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”
“One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.”
“One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. … All you need to do is to be curious, receptive, eager for experience. And there's one strange thing: when you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.”
“Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”
“Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.”
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
“What one has to do usually can be done.”
“Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.”
“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.”
“A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.”
“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”
“Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.”
“Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.”
“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death. (1 April 1939)”
“The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.”
“Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land. (14 July 1939)”
“You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.”
“Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people? (16 October 1939)”
“What you don't do can be a destructive force.”
“No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling. (20 December 1939)”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
“When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor. (23 February 1940)”
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'”
“I have a great belief in spiritual force, but I think we have to realize that spiritual force alone has to have material force with it so long as we live in a material world. The two together make a strong combination. (17 May 1940)”
“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”
“Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little. (1 July 1940)”
“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.”
“One should always sleep in all of one's guest beds, to make sure that they are comfortable. (11 September 1941)”
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”
“Long ago, I made up my mind that when things were said involving only me, I would pay no attention to them, except when valid criticism was carried by which I could profit. (14 January 1942)”
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.”
“One of the blessings of age is to learn not to part on a note of sharpness, to treasure the moments spent with those we love, and to make them whenever possible good to remember, for time is short. (5 February 1943)”
“It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”
“At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want — for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war. (15 April 1943)”
“If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”
“One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted. (11 May 1943)”
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”
“Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth. (22 August 1944)”
“Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.”
“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.”
“I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could. (8 November 1944)”
“One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”
“The mobilization of world opinion and methods of negotiation should be developed and used by every nation in order to strengthen the United Nations. Then if we are forced into war, it will be because there has been no way to prevent it through negotiation and the mobilization of world opinion. In which case we should have the voluntary support of many nations, which is far better than the decision of one nation alone, or even of a few nations. (16 April 1954)”
“It's your life-but only if you make it so.”
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”
“This is a time for action — not for war, but for mobilization of every bit of peace machinery. It is also a time for facing the fact that you cannot use a weapon, even though it is the weapon that gives you greater strength than other nations, if it is so destructive that it practically wipes out large areas of land and great numbers of innocent people. (16 April 1954 )”
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”
“If the use of leisure time is confined to looking at TV for a few extra hours every day, we will deteriorate as a people. (5 November 1958)”
“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
“The arts in every field — music, drama, sculpture, painting — we can learn to appreciate and enjoy. We need not be artists, but we should be able to appreciate the work of artists. (5 November 1958)”
“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”
“As long as we are not actually destroyed, we can work to gain greater understanding of other peoples and to try to present to the peoples of the world the values of our own beliefs. We can do this by demonstrating our conviction that human life is worth preserving and that we are willing to help others to enjoy benefits of our civilization just as we have enjoyed it. (20 December 1961)”
“Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.”
“We face the future fortified with the lessons we have learned from the past. It is today that we must create the world of the future. Spinoza, I think, pointed out that we ourselves can make experience valuable when, by imagination and reason, we turn it into foresight.”
“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”
“When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”
“Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.”
“I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.”
“There never has been security. No man has ever known what he would meet around the next corner; if life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”
“I'm so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life!”
“We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity. In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are. … In the long run there is no more exhilarating experience than to determine one's position, state it bravely and then act boldly.”
“The mother of a family should look upon her housekeeping and the planning of meals as a scientific occupation.”
“What we must learn to do is to create unbreakable bonds between the sciences and the humanities. We cannot procrastinate. The world of the future is in our making. Tomorrow is now.”
“Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.”
“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”
“Example is the best lesson there is.”
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.”
“I do not think that I am a natural born mother... If I ever wanted to mother anyone, it was my father.”
“You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself.”
“Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.”
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
“When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.”
“Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.”
“Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
“I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me 'understand' something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.”
“In all our contacts it is probably the sense of being really needed and wanted which gives us the greatest satisfaction and creates the most lasting bond.”
“Actors are one family over the entire world.”
“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.”
“You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.”
“As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.”
“It is not more vacation we need - it is more vocation.”
“There are practical little things in housekeeping which no man really understands.”
“The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.”
“Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.”
“The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.”
“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.”
“Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.”
“Actors are one family over the entire world.”
“The Bible illustrated by Dore occupied many of my hours - and I think probably gave me many nightmares.”
“Campaign behavior for wives: Always be on time. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Lean back in the parade car so everybody can see the president.”
“I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president's wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.”
“Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.”
“One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'”
“Today is the oldest you've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again.”
“I have never felt that anything really mattered but knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.”
“Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.”
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.”
“If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”
“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.”
“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”
“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.”
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.”