Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes (159 Quotes)


    Pat was a different person. She asked about the children in the hospital, the food, their medical care, education. I liked her very much. She was always what I expected a president's wife to be. She was really down to earth, good to everyone in the Embassy, all the staff.

    Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

    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.

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


    Many people have so much to bear themselves that sympathy for anyone else is out of the question.

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


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

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

    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.

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


    I could never say in the morning, I have a headache and cannot do thus and so. Headache or no headache, thus and so had to be done.

    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.'

    We women are callow fledglings as compared with the wise old birds who manipulate the political machinery, and we still hesitate to believe that a woman can fill certain positions in public life as competently and adequately as a man.

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

    The kind of calm which comes when one has done the best one can.

    Advice on campaign behavior for first ladies Always be on time. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Remember to lean back in the parade so everybody can see the president. Be sure not to get too fat, because you'll have to sit three in the back.

    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.

    Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people.

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

    Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church

    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.


    When you build a memorial, you build it not because the person wanted it, but for the future -- for generations who didn't know the man and didn't know the era in which he lived,

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

    Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.

    I have learned long ago to possess my soul in patience and accept the inevitable.

    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.

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

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


    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.

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


    Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

    Happiness may exist under all conditions, given the right kind of people and sufficient economic security for adequate food and shelter.

    You future first ladies will feel that you are no longer clothing yourself, you are dressing a public monument.

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




    It is our freedom to progress that makes us all want to live and to go on.

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

    It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

    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.

    I believe that all that we go through here must have some value.

    For 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 for it.



    Related Authors


    Eleanor Roosevelt - Abigail Adams - Michelle Obama - Mary Todd Lincoln - Martha Washington - Lady Bird Johnson - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - Jackie Kennedy - Betty Ford - Imelda Marcos


Page 2 of 4 1 2 3 4

Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections