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About the only value the story of my life may have is to show that one can, even without any particular gifts, overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable if one is willing to face the fact that they must be overcome; that, in spite of timidity and fear, in spite of a lack of special talents, one can find a way to live widely and fully.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, preface, Autobiography
The morality of a [political] party must grow out of the conscience and the participation of the voters.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Autobiography
The American Dream can no more remain static than can the American nation.... We cannot any longer take an old approach to world problems. They aren't the same problems. It isn't the same world. We must not adopt the methods of our ancestors; instead, we must emulate that pioneer quality in our ancestors that made them attempt new methods for a New World.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Autobiography
We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, You Learn by Living
If you prepare yourself at every point as well as you can, with whatever means you may have, however meager they may seem, you will be able to grasp opportunity for broader experience when it appears. Without preparation you cannot do it.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, preface, Autobiography
There is no more precious experience in life than friendship. And I am not forgetting love and marriage as I write this; the lovers, or the man and wife, who are not friends are but weakly joined together. One enlarges his circle of friends through contact with many people. One who limits those contacts narrows the circle and frequently his own point of view as well.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Book of Common Sense Etiquette
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, My Day
It is today that we must create the world of the future.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Tomorrow Is Now
Most women, I think, though they may complain a little about this, would agree that meeting the needs of others is not a real burden; it is what makes life worth living. It is probably the deepest satisfaction a woman has.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, You Learn by Living
You never know anyone until you marry them.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Book of Common Sense Etiquette
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, You Learn by Living
A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, attributed, Woman's Day, Aug. 2011
Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, preface, Autobiography
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, My Days
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Today's Health, Oct. 1966
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, This Is My Story
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, Book of Common Sense Etiquette
If you can develop this ability to see what you look at, to understand its meaning, to readjust your knowledge to this new information, you can continue to learn and to grow as long as you live and you'll have a wonderful time doing it.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, You Learn by Living
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, My Day
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Tomorrow Is Now
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, It Seems to Me: Selected Letters of 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 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, You Learn by Living
The greatest tragedy of old age is the tendency for the old to feel unneeded, unwanted, and of no use to anyone; the secret of happiness in the declining years is to remain interested in life, as active as possible, useful to others, busy, and forward looking.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Book of Common Sense Etiquette
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, My Day
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, foreward, You Learn by Living
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, You Learn by Living
Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, My Day
Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, speech at the National Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, Jan. 21, 1941
It is always disagreeable to take stands. It is always easier to compromise, always easier to let things go. To many women, and I am one of them, it is extraordinarily difficult to care about anything enough to cause disagreement or unpleasant feelings, but I have come to the conclusion that this must be done for a time until we can prove our strength and demand respect for our wishes. We cannot even be of real service in the coming campaign and speak as a united body of women unless we have the respect of men and show that when we express a wish, we are willing to stand by it.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, speech given at the women's dinner, New York Democratic State Convention, 1924
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, You Learn by Living
One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, My Day
No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, letter to Harry Truman, Mar. 22, 1948
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, attributed, Eleanor and Franklin
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, preface, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
I'm so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life!
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, attributed, Eleanor: The Years Alone
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.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, This Is My Story
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