Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must not, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." Another "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

The mobilization of world opinion and methods of negotiation should be developed and used by every nation in order to strengthen the United Nations.

The most important word in the English language is hope.

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.

All big things in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.

Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

The purpose of life afterall is to live it.

So, after all, we are but puppets, creatures of our fate, not commanding it but being molded by it.

The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government.

We have come to accept bigger and bigger things as meaning greater and greater efficiency, more and more prosperity and more and more freedom. The two do not go together of necessity.

True hospitality consists of giving the best of yourself to your guests.

Success is not something that can be measured or worn on a watch or hung on a wall. It is not the esteem of colleagues, or the admiration of the community, or the appreciation of patients. Success is the certain knowledge that you have become yourself, the person you will meant to be from all time. That should be reward enough.

Women are like tea bags: put them in hot water and they get stronger.

It is impossible to be a cynic if you live a good deal with young people. Fundamentally, every young person has a feeling that the future is going to hold something of value.

...no matter how avid they themselves may be for praise and appreciation, people are often niggardly in giving it to others, however merited it is.

Home-making today should have a background of scientific training because only in this way can real efficiency be achieved. The average girl wants to be able to keep her house with the least possible strain, and in order to do this she must have good training. This can best be achieved by taking a good course in home economics.

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.

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.

I wonder if Communists occupied in producing plays are not safer than Communists starving to death. I have always felt that whatever your beliefs might be, if you could earn enough to keep body and soul together and had to be pretty busy doing that, you would not be very apt to have time to plot the overthrow of any existing government.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

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.

those who attack always do so with greater fervor than those who defend.

It is curious how much more interest can be evoked by a mixture of gossip, romance and mystery than by facts.

No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

talking too much is a far greater social fault than talking too little.

It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.

Every age is an unknown country.

Courage is exhilarating.

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.

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.

It seems to me of great importance to teach children respect for life. Towards this end, experiments on living animals in classrooms should be stopped. To encourage cruelty in the name of science can only destroy the finer emotions of affection and sympathy, and breed an unfeeling callousness in the young towards suffering in all living creatures.

One of the first things we must get rid of is the idea that democracy is tantamount to capitalism.

We need emotional outlets in this country, and the more artistic people we develop the better it will be for us as a nation.

Every woman wants to be first to someone sometime in her life and that desire is the explanation for many strange things women do.

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

Nobody else is going to do the things which are yours to be done in the world.

I feel quite sure that the American people, if they have knowledge and leadership, can meet any crisis just as well as they met it over and over again in the past.

I found that almost everyone had something interesting to contribute to my education.

The separation of church and state is extremely important to any of us who holds to the original traditions of our nation. . . . To change these traditions . . . would be harmful to our whole attitude of tolerance in the religious area. If we look at situations which have arisen in the past in Europe and other world areas, I think we will see the reason why it is wise to hold to our early traditions.

Curiosity must be kept alive.

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.

Success in marriage depends on being able, when you get over being in love, to really love....You never know anyone until you marry them.

When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted

If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.

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.

Some people are going to leave a mark on this world, while others will leave a stain.

Mr. [Richard M.] Nixon never has anything but hindsight.