Famous Quotes & Sayings

Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Famous Quotes By Eleanor Roosevelt

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Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I wonder if Communists occupied in producing plays are not safer than Communists starving to death. I have always felt that whatever your beliefs might be, if you could earn enough to keep body and soul together and had to be pretty busy doing that, you would not be very apt to have time to plot the overthrow of any existing government. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one's world. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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To be mature you have to realize what you value most ... Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one's own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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The mind must be trained, rather than the memory. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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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 ... — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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The important thing is neither your nationality nor the religion you professed, but how your faith translated itself in your life. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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You [future first ladies] will feel that you are no longer clothing yourself, you are dressing a public monument. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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We can no longer oversimplify. We can no longer build lazy and false stereotypes: Americans are like this, Russians are like that, a Jew behaves in such a way, a Negro thinks in a different way. The lazy generalities - 'You know how women are ... Isn't that just like a man?' The world cannot be understood from a single point of view. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we should pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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We will never have peace without friendship around the world. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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 and destructive effect upon society than the others. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I consider those are rich who are doing something they feel worthwhile and which they enjoy doing. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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The basis of all good human behavior is kindness. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I have often felt that I cheated my children a little. I was never so totally theirs as most mothers are. I gave to audiences whatbelonged to my children, got back from audiences the love my children longed to give me. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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All of us ... should remember that no amount of flag-waving, pledging allegiance, or fervent singing of the national anthem is evidence that we are patriotic in the real sense of the word ... Outward behavior, while important, is not the real measure of a man's patriotism. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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Education is the cornerstone of liberty. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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One of the first things we must get rid of is the idea that democracy is tantamount to capitalism. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I think it is impossible for one human being really to know another without first knowing and being at peace with himself. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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In business courtesy and efficiency have a symbiotic relationship. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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Mr. [Richard M.] Nixon never has anything but hindsight. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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What I have learned from my own experience is that the most important ingredients in a child's education are curiosity, interest, imagination, and a sense of the adventure of life. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I believe that it is essential to our leadership in the world and to the development of true democracy in our country to have no discrimination in our country whatsoever. This is most important in the schools of our country. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Men have to be reminded that women exist. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I shall either find a way, or make one (attributed) — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I wish with all my heart that every child could be so imbued with a sense of the adventure of life that each change, each readjustment, each surprise
good or bad
that came along would be welcomed as part of the whole enthralling experience. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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If we do not pay for children in good schools, then we are going to pay for them in prisons and mental hospitals. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Franklin [D. Roosevelt] had a good way of simplifying things. He made people feel that he had a real understanding of things and they felt they had about the same understanding. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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Women are like tea bags: put them in hot water and they get stronger. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Ability is not something to be saved, like money, in the hope that you can draw interest on it. The interest comes from the spending. Unused ability, like unused muscles, will atrophy. It is tragic to realize that the majority of human beings, even the so-called educated, call upon only the smallest fraction of their potential capacity. They leave many talents dormant. They fail to develop their mental qualities. They are almost unaware of the degree of energy upon which they might call to build a full and rewarding life. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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Staying aloof is not a solution, it is a cowardly evasion. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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 his own weight, this is a frightening prospect. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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If someone betrays you once, it's their fault; if they betray you twice, it's your fault. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Nothing was ever accomplished by anyone who said 'It can't be done.' — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Life was meant to be lived. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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A successful life for a man or for a woman seems to me to lie in the knowledge that one has developed to the limit the capacities with which one was endowed; that one has contributed something constructive to family and friends and to a home community; that one has brought happiness wherever it was possible; that one has earned one's way in the world, has kept some friends, and need not be ashamed to face oneself honestly. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. 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. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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Once your children are grown up and have children of their own, the problems are theirs and the less the older generation interferes the better. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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To appear to be on the inside and know more than others about what is going on is a great temptation for most people. It is a rare person who is willing to seem to know less than he does ... Somehow, people seem to feel that it is belittling to their importance not to know more than other people. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Experience should teach us that it is always the unexpected that does occur. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Nothing we learn in this world is ever wasted. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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We cannot exist as a little island of well-being in a world where two-thirds of the people go to bed hungry every night. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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The kind of propaganda that some of the religious groups, aided and abetted by the opposition, put forth in that campaign utterly disgusted me. If I needed anything to show me what prejudice can do to the intelligence of human beings that campaign was the best lesson I could have had. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I have never believed that war settled anything satisfactorily, but I am not entirely sure that some times there are certain situations in the world such as we have in actuality when a country is worse off when it does not go to war for its principles than if it went to war. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Government exists for one purpose: to make things better for all people. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Whatever come we have to meet it. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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

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If you must compromise, compromise up. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Long ago, I made up my mind that when things were said involving only me, I would pay no attention to them, except when valid criticism was carried by which I could profit. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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

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Perhaps the basic thing which contributes to charm is the ability to forget oneself and be engrossed in other people. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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You rarely achieve finality. If you did, life would be over, but as you strive new visions open before you, new possibilities for the satisfaction of living. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Do whatever comes your way to do as well as you can. Think as little as possible about yourself. Think as much as possible about other people. Dwell on things that are interesting. 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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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If you want a world ruled by law and not by force you must build up, from the very grassroots, a respect for law. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Many of the boys I saw in hospitals are now leading happy and useful lives, but they carry with them, day after day, the results of the war. If we do not achieve the ends for which they sacrificed - a peaceful world in which there exists freedom from fear of both aggression and want - we have failed. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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

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Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I am opposed to 'right to work' legislation because it does nothing for working people, but instead gives employers the right to exploit labor. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times - The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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Because they have so little, children must rely on imagination rather than experience. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you. I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving tonight. You have grown so much to be a part of my life that it is empty without you. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had something to do
I just did it. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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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. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I believe that it is a great mistake not to stand up for people, even when you differ with them, if you feel that they are trying to do things that will help our country. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I'm sure that all the drivers and motorcycle police had once been racing drivers and were eager to get back to that profession. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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More people are ruined by victory, I imagine, than be defeat. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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I kept praying that I might be able to prevent a repetition of this stupidity called war. I have tried to keep the promise I made to myself, but the progress that the world is making toward peace seems like the crawling of a little child, very halting and slow. — Eleanor Roosevelt