Eleanor roosevelt quotes

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.

Do something everyday that scares you.

I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few

The word liberal comes from the word free. We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

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

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.

Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

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.

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

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

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

The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time. But if you have more projects than you have time for, you are not going to be an unhappy person. This is as much a question of having imagination and curiosity as it is of actually making plans.

If the use of leisure time is confined to looking at TV for a few extra hours every day, we will deteriorate as a people.

Life is like a parachute jump, you've got to get it right the first time.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.... The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

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

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

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.

No human being can ever "own" another, whether in friendship, love, marriage or parenthood. Many human relationships have been ruined and happiness far too often changed to misery by a failure to understand this.

Anger is one letter short of danger.

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.

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

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.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by doing the thing which you think you cannot do.

Friends, you and me... you brought another friend... and then there were three... we started our group... our circle of friends... and like that circle... there is no beginning or end.

The very next thing you need to be doing is the thing that terrifies you the most.

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

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.

We are given in our newspapers and on TV and radio exactly what we, the public, insist on having, and this very frequently is mediocre information and mediocre entertainment.

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

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

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.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude

a society in which there is widespread economic insecurity can turn freedom into a barren and vapid right for millions of people.

The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may 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 ever were before. . . . 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?

Most of the work that's done in the world gets done by people who weren't feeling all that well at the time that they did it.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

This is a time for action — not for war, but for mobilization of every bit of peace machinery.

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

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

You never know anyone until you marry them.

All of us in this country give lip service to the ideals set forth in the Bill of Rights and emphasized by every additional amendment, and yet when war is stirring in the world, many of us are ready to curtail our civil liberties. We do not stop to think that curtailing these liberties may in the end bring us a greater danger than the danger we are trying to avert.

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

Before we can make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves.

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

...without equality there can be no democracy.

Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil.

To leave the world richer—that is the ultimate success.

We must preserve our right to think and differ.

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.

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

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

The destiny of human rights is in the hands of all our citizens in all our communities.

The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. Love thy neighbor as thyself.

Each generation supposes that the world was simpler for the one before it.

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

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

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

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

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

When you 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.'

Courage is exhilarating.

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.

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.

Poor minds talk about people average minds talk about events great minds talk about ideas

It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.

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.

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

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.

Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run, it is easier.

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 more we simplify our material needs the more we are free to think of other things.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed.

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

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

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

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.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

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

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

Philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes.

Of course, I do not believe in having everyone who is a liberal called a communist, or everyone who is conservative called a fascist.

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

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.

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 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.

All of life is a constant education.

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

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.

Comparison is the thief of all joy.

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

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.

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

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.

Education is the cornerstone of liberty.

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

The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government.

We will have to want peace, want it enough to pay for it, before it becomes an accepted rule.

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

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.

It is a curious thing in human experience, but to live through a period of stress and sorrow with another person, creates a bond which nothing seems able to break.

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.

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

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

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.