Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes (159 Quotes)

Without doubt human beings are the most interesting study in the world.

You must do the thing that you think you cannot do.

Conservation of land and conservation of people frequently go hand in hand.

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

All of life is a constant education.

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.

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

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

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.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

It is not so much what people do in this world as their reasons for doing it which really makes a difference. Sacrifices are not so important as the reasons for which you sacrifice, and no sacrifice is any good which remains ever present as such.

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

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.

So often people you admire at a distance do not mean so much to you after you meet them.

In the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House, ... Eleanor.

No, I don't. Well, I mean, she's here, she's a presence, but we haven't been able to have a conversation.

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

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

I wish for those I love this New Year an opportunity to earn sufficient, to have that which they need for their own and to give that which they desire to others, to bring into the lives of those about them some measure of joy, to know the satisfaction of work well done, of recreation earned and therefore savored, to end the year a little wiser, a little kinder and therefore a little happier.

Understanding is a two-way street.

We must be willing to learn the lesson that cooperation may imply compromise, but if it brings a world advance it is a gain for each individual nation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.

In a democratic society we must live cooperatively, and serve the community in which we live, to the best of our ability. For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.

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

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

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, and that our own success, to be real, must contribute t.

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.

This is a strange, little, complacent country Switzerland, in many ways a USA in miniature but of course nearer the center of disturbance.

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.

I think we ought to impress on both our girls and boys that successful marriages require just as much work, just as much intelligence and just as much unselfish devotion, as they give to any position they undertake to fill on a paid basis.

I have felt that people were 'mean-mad' at times and wondered if life were not treating them so harshly that they were unable to retain any of the qualities which make people lovable and that make life worth living.

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.

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.

All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another's failings but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves. If at the end one can say, This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task, then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.

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

My life can be so arranged that I can live on whatever I have. If I cannot live as I have lived in the past, I shall live differently, and living differently does not mean living with less attention to the things that make life gracious and pleasant or with less enjoyment of things of the mind.

Laws are only observed with he consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.

An economic policy which does not consider the well-being of all will not serve the purposes of peace and the growth of well-being among the people of all nations.

Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.

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

At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war.

One should always sleep in all of one's guest beds, to make sure that they are comfortable.

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

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.