Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

Do one thing every day that scares you.

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.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you’ll be criticized anyway.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

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

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Today is the oldest you've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again. Keep the child in You alive

Happiness is not a goal... it's a by-product of a life well lived.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience which you must stop and look fear in the face.

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

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

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

Learn from the mistakes of others, you can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.

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

Anger is only one letter short of danger.

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 should be curiosity.

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyways.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

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

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

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.

Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive.

One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

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

Understanding is a two-way street.

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

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

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words;

it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.

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

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.

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

What one has to do usually can be done.

In all our contacts it is probably the sense of being really needed and wanted which gives us the greatest satisfaction and creates the most lasting bond.

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.

Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water!

I have spent many years of my life in opposition and I like the role.

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

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

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.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

There are practical little things in housekeeping which no man really understands.

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.

A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

I think I lived those years very impersonally.

It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president's wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.