Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

I received a most amusing postcard the other morning. Unfortunately, it was not signed in a readable manner so I cannot answer it privately. But it comes from Moblie, Ala., and says: 'Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: You have not answered my question, the amount of Negro blood you have in your veins, if any.' I am afraid none of us know how much nor what kind of blood we have in our veins, since chemically it is all the same. And most of us cannot trace our ancestry more than a few generations.

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.

There is nothing to fear except fear it's self.

Our obligation to the world is, primarily, our obligation to our own future. Obviously, we cannot develop beyond a certain point unless other nations develop, too.

I wonder if one of the penalties of growing older is that you become more and more conscious that nothing is very permanent.

Today is the oldest you've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again.

Do something everyday that scares you.

Anger is one letter short of danger.

Those of us who believe in the right of any human being to belong to whatever church he sees fit, and to worship God in his own way, cannot be accused of prejudice when we do not want to see public education connected with religious control of the schools, which are paid for by taxpayers' money.

The more we simplify our material needs the more we are free to think of other things.

Manipulate the situation to create the reality of your desire

Do not be afraid of mistakes, provided you do not make the same one twice.

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Mozart, who was buried in a pauper’s grave, was one of the greatest successes we know of, a man who in his early thirties had poured out his inexhaustible gift of music, leaving the world richer because he had passed that way. To leave the world richer—that is the ultimate success.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by doing the thing which you think you cannot do.

No one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one.

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.

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.

The things you refuse to meet today always come back at you later on, usually under circumstances which make the decision twice as difficult as it originally was.

I believe that it is a great mistake not to stand up for people, even when you differ with them, if you feel that they are trying to do things that will help our country.

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!

There is a desire for progress in the hearts of all men, and it is the sense of frustration and inability to move forward that brings violent revolution.

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.

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.

Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

Life is meant to be lived.

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.

Of all the nations in the Western world, the United States, with the most money and the most time, has the fewest readers of books per capita. This is an incalculable loss. This, too, is one of the few civilized nations in the world which is unable to support a single magazine devoted solely to books.

The economy of communism is an economy which grows in an atmosphere of misery and want.

What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?

Anyone who has gone through great suffering is bound to have a greater sympathy and understanding of the problems of mankind.

You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

No leader can be too far ahead of his followers.

You'll be "damned if you do, and damned if you don't."

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

Work is always an antidote to depression.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

If you lose money you lose much, If you lose friends you lose more, If you lose faith you lose all.

The world conspires to help those who are in love with the beauty of their dreams.

In the long run there is no more exhilarating experience than to determine one's position, state it bravely and then act boldly.

The leisure class is one in which individuals have sufficient economic security and sufficient leisure to find opportunity for a variety of satisfactions in life.

Democracy cannot be static. Whatever is static is dead.

No human being can ever "own" another, whether in friendship, love, marriage or parenthood. Many human relationships have been ruined and happiness far too often changed to misery by a failure to understand this.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.