Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

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

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

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

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.

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!

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do ...

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

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.

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

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

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

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

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

Every time you meet a situation you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.

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?

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.

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.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

All of life is a constant education.

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 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.

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

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.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk.

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

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

I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

Understanding is a two-way street.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

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.

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiousity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

What you don't do can be a destructive force.

Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'

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

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.

When you know to laugh and when to look upon things as too absurd to take seriously, the other person is ashamed to carry through even if he was serious about it.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.

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

So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect

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.

A mature person is one who is 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 all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably

What one has to do usually can be done.

There is nothing to regret - either for those who go or for those who are left behind

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face… do the thing you think you cannot do.

If you have any interests you can gain a wider audience for those interests while the goldfish bowl is yours!

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

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.

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

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

If we want a free and peaceful world, if we want to make the deserts bloom and man grow to greater dignity as a human being - we can do it.

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

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

A trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree as we do namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions

Change means the unknown.

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