Eleanor Roosevelt famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
We will have to want peace, want it enough to pay for it, before it becomes an accepted rule.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Do one thing every day that scares you.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run, it is easier.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
If you lose money you lose much, If you lose friends you lose more, If you lose faith you lose all.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The word liberal comes from the word free. We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else … you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The giving of love is an education in itself.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
If you believe that a nation is really better off which achieves for a comparative few, those who are capable of attaining it, high culture, ease, opportunity, and that these few from their enlightenment should give what they consider best to those less favored, then you naturally belong to the Republican Party. But if you believe that people must struggle slowly to the light for themselves, then it seems to me that you are a Democrat.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Always be on time. Never try to make any personal engagements. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Never be disturbed by anything. Always do what you're told to do as quickly as possible. Remember to lean back in a parade, so that people can see your husband. Don't get too fat to ride three on a seat. Get out of the way as quickly as you're not needed.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
You never know anyone until you marry them.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The future is literally in our hands to mold as we like. But we cannot wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is now.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
When you 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.'
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and good will, and a constant and earnest striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
You must do the things you think you cannot do.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.... In any case, the giving of love is an education in itself.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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 in 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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Your ambition should be to get as much life out of living as you possibly can, as much enjoyment, as much interest, as much experience, as much understanding. Not simply be what is generally called a 'success.'
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Enjoy every minute you have with those you love, my dear, for no one can take joy that is past away from you. It will be there in your heart to live on when the dark days come.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do ...
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
What one has to do usually can be done.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
It seems to me that it is the basic right of any human being to work.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
To leave the world richer—that is the ultimate success.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Women are like tea bags.They do not know how strong they are until they get into hot water.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes over night. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Education is the cornerstone of liberty.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Life has got to be lived - that's all there is to it. At seventy, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that 'this, too, shall pass!'
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. Love thy neighbor as thyself.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
It seems to me of great importance to teach children respect for life.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says: it can't be done.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
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.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
If we want a free and peaceful world, if we want to make the deserts bloom and man grow to greater dignity as a human being - we can do it.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person's stature is as large as one's own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one's world.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The very next thing you need to be doing is the thing that terrifies you the most.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Obedience may have its uses, but it is no substitute for willing, uncoerced co-operation.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a real sense, by the time we are adults, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we should pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying attention to you.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
This is not a time when women should be patient. We are in a war and we need to fight it with all our ability and every weapon possible. Women pilots, in this particular case, are a weapon waiting to be used.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Franklin's illness...gave him strength and courage he had not had before. He had to think out the fundamentals of living and learn the greatest of all lessons - infinite patience and never ending persistence.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Christ, some of the other great Jewish teachers, Buddha, all preached it. Their followers forgot it. What is the trouble between capital and labor, what is the trouble in many of our communities, but rather a universal forgetting that this teaching is one of our first obligations.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
If human beings can be trained for cruelty and greed and a belief in power which comes through hate and fear and force, certainly we can train equally well for greatness and mercy and the power of love which comes because of the strength of the good qualities to be found in the soul of every human being.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Think as little as possible about yourself and as much as possible about other people.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.... The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
Women are like tea bags: put them in hot water and they get stronger.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt -
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by doing the thing which you think you cannot do.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
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