Top 528 Quotes & Sayings by Eleanor Roosevelt - Page 2

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me 'understand' something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

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

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.

What one has to do usually can be done.

The Bible illustrated by Dore occupied many of my hours - and I think probably gave me many nightmares.

The mother of a family should look upon her housekeeping and the planning of meals as a scientific occupation.

I do not think that I am a natural born mother... If I ever wanted to mother anyone, it was my father.

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.

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 ... 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.

If human beings can be trained for cruelty and greed and a belief in power which comes through hate and fear and force, certainly we can train equally well for greatness and mercy and the power of love which comes because of the strength of the good qualities to be found in the soul of every human being.

Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’

Do one thing every day that scares you.

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!

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 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 attention to you.

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

Basically we could not have peace, or an atmosphere in which peace could grow, unless we recognized the rights of individual human beings... their importance, their dignity... and agreed that was the basic thing that had to be accepted throughout the world.

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.

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

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.

We must preserve our right to think and differ.

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

It's your life - but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. 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.

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

Education is the cornerstone of liberty.

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

...without equality there can be no democracy.

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

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

I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.

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

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. Anger is only one letter short of danger. If someone betrays you once, it is his fault; if he betrays you twice, it is your fault. Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. He who loses money, loses much; he who loses a friend, loses much more; he who loses faith, loses all.

I can't tell you how to succeed, but I can tell you how to fail: Try to please everybody.

One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted.

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.

The greatest tragedy of old age is the tendency for the old to feel unneeded, unwanted, and of no use to anyone; the secret of happiness in the declining years is to remain interested in life, as active as possible, useful to others, busy, and forward looking.

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

Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes over night. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.

We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity.

A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.

Think as little as possible about yourself and as much as possible about other people.

Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

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.

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

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

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

The future is literally in our hands to mold as we like. But we cannot wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is now.

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart

A number of people still think of the United States as being overwhelmingly English, Protestant, and white. This erroneous idea influences their whole outlook.

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

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude

Long ago, there was a noble word, liberal, which derives from the word free. Now a strange thing happened to that word. A man named Hitler made it a term of abuse, a matter of suspicion, because those who were not with him were against him, and liberals had no use for Hitler. And then another man named McCarthy cast the same opprobrium on the word. ... We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.

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.

A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.

Caring comes from being able to put yourself in the position of the other person.

Since everybody is an individual, nobody can be you. You are unique. No one can tell you how to use your time. It is yours. Your life is your own. You mold it. You make it.

All of life is a constant education.