Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

A woman has, first of all, her duties in their own home, and there are many women particularly when they're young, who can do an active job in their community like being a mayor, but who cannot go to Washington or Albany or wherever the capital of the state is. There are others who can, can leave home, whose children are older and so forth. I think it all is a personal decision.

Of course, I do not believe in having everyone who is a liberal called a communist, or everyone who is conservative called a fascist.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

You rarely achieve finality. If you did, life would be over, but as you strive new visions open before you, new possibilities for the satisfaction of living.

If you approach each new person you meet in a spirit of adventure, you will find yourself endlessly fascinated by the new channels of thought and experience and personality that you encounter.

I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.

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 any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.

We need not fear any isms if our democracy is achieving the ends for which it was established.

the term 'young adults' which is so often used today seems to me a misnomer, and one which, if taken seriously, may lead the adolescent into misunderstanding as to his nature and his role in life. 'Young" he is; 'adult' he is not.

You never know anyone until you marry them.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most... Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one's own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

No, I have never wanted to be a man. I have often wanted to be more effective as a woman, but I have never felt that trousers would do the trick!

I feel quite sure that what the American people lack is knowledge.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

I believe in active citizenship, for men and women equally, as a simple matter of right and justice. I believe we will have better government in all of our countries when men and women discuss public issues together and make their decisions on the basis of their different areas of experience and their common concern for the welfare of their families and their world.

The greatest gift you can give a child is an imagination.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Before we can make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves.

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

You always admire what you really don't understand. - Eleanor Roosevelt

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are and then make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else's lie, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.

Every woman in public life needs to develop skin as tough as rhinoceros hide.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

We face the future fortified with the lessons we have learned from the past. It is today that we must create the world of the future.

You get strength and courage, when you stop to look fear in the face.

When all is said and done, and statesmen discuss the future of the world, the fact remains that people fight these wars.

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.'

I'm so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life!

Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

Our children should learn the general framework of their government and then they should know where they come in contact with the government, where it touches their daily lives and where their influence is exerted on the government. It must not be a distant thing, someone else's business, but they must see how every cog in the wheel of a democracy is important and bears its share of responsibility for the smooth running of the entire machine.

I carried it (a revolver) religiously and during the summer I asked a friend, a man who had been one of Franklin's bodyguards in New York State, to give me some practice in target shooting so that if the need arose I would know how to use the gun.

Get out of the way as quickly as you're not needed.

The film industry is a great industry, with infinite possibilities for good and bad. Its primary purpose is to entertain people. On the side, it can do many other things. It can popularize certain ideals, it can make education palatable. But in the long run, the judge who decides whether what it does is good or bad is the man or woman who attends the movies.

The only joy in this hard life is serving others.

We must do that which we think we cannot.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

To most teenagers, life is a strange uncharted land filled with a mixture of new joys, intensely felt, and painful confusions for which they know no anodyne.

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.

If many of our young people have lost the excitement of the early settlers, who had a country to explore and develop, it is because no one remembers to tell them that the world has never been so challenging, so exciting... Perhaps the older generation is often to blame with its cautious warning: “Take a job that will give you security, not adventure.” But I say to the young: “Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, and imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.

The kind of man who thinks that helping with the dishes is beneath him will also think that helping with the baby is beneath him, and then he certainly is not going to be a very successful father.

All wars eventually act as boomerangs and the victor suffers as much as the vanquished.

It seems to me that it is the basic right of any human being to work.

A day out-of-doors, someone I loved to talk with, a good book and some simple food and music - that would be rest.

As with all children, the feeling that I was useful was perhaps the greatest joy I experienced.