Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

Philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes.

I was perfectly certain that I had nothing to offer of an individual nature and that my only chance of doing my duty as the wife of a public official was to do exactly as the majority of women were doing.

Terrific minds focus on tips; average minds go over activities; little minds talk about people today.

Most of the work that's done in the world gets done by people who weren't feeling all that well at the time that they did it.

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.

I know that given great responsibility men sometimes change, but Mr. Nixon's Presidency would worry me.

The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time. But if you have more projects than you have time for, you are not going to be an unhappy person. This is as much a question of having imagination and curiosity as it is of actually making plans.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

Marriage and the up-bringing of children in the home require as well-trained a mind and as well-disciplined a character as any other occupation that might be considered a career.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

The freedom of man, I contend, is the freedom to eat.

I could never say in the morning, "I have a headache and cannot do thus and so". Headache or no headache, thus and so had to be done.

If you have to compromise, be sure to compromise up.

We need our radicals.

I do not want church groups controlling the schools of our country. They must remain free.

Nothing we learn in this world is ever wasted.

We will have to want peace, want it enough to pay for it, before it becomes an accepted rule.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

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.

Government exists for one purpose: to make things better for all people.

practically nothing we do ever stands by itself. If it is good, it will serve some good purpose in the future. If it is evil, it may haunt us and handicap our efforts in unimagined ways.

Strength that goes wrong is even more dangerous than weakness that goes wrong.

The motivating force of the theory of a Democratic way of life is still a belief that as individuals we live cooperatively, and, to the best of our ability, serve the community in which we live.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

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.

I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.

We must want for others, not ourselves alone.

Obedience may have its uses, but it is no substitute for willing, uncoerced co-operation.

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.

It is equality of monotony which makes the strength of the British Isles.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.

I have complete faith in the American people's ability if they know and if they have leadership.

Understanding is a two-way street.

A respect for the rights of other peoples to determine their forms of government and their economy will not weaken our democracy. It will inevitably strengthen it.

I have always felt that it was important that everyone who was a worker join a labor organization.

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.

There are no have-to's, just choices

After the discovery in 1918 of love letters revealing that Franklin was involved with Lucy Mercer: The bottom dropped out of my own particular world, I faced myself, my surroundings, my world, honestly for the first time.

Sailors have the cleanest bodies and the filthiest minds.

the greatest luxury I know is sitting up reading in bed.

A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

Do one thing everyday that scares you. Those small things that make us uncomfortable help us build courage to do the work we do.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude

Be confident, not certain

What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person

We can no longer oversimplify. We can no longer build lazy and false stereotypes: Americans are like this, Russians are like that, a Jew behaves in such a way, a Negro thinks in a different way. The lazy generalities - 'You know how women are ... Isn't that just like a man?' The world cannot be understood from a single point of view.

If it's a man's game so decidedly that a woman would be soiled by entering it, then there is something radically wrong with the American game of politics.