Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

214 Sourced Quotes

One has to live in Washington to know what a city of rumors it is.

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
You get more joy out of the giving to others, and should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give.

Eleanor Roosevelt
I was one of those who was very happy when the original prohibition amendment passed. I thought innocently that a law in this country would automatically be complied with, and my own observation led me to feel rather ardently that the less strong liquor anyone consumed the better it was. During prohibition I observed the law meticulously, but I came gradually to see that laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.

Eleanor Roosevelt
A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected.

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
For instance, it is certain that women do not want a woman for President. Nor would they have the slightest confidence in her ability to fulfill the functions of that office.

Eleanor Roosevelt
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.

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

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling.

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
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
How hard it is to project oneself into the future. We are always prone to think of the conditions which are with us today as being permanent conditions.

Eleanor Roosevelt
No leader can be too far ahead of his followers.

Eleanor Roosevelt
We do not move forward by curtailing people's liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say.

Eleanor Roosevelt
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.

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person

Eleanor Roosevelt
The mobilization of world opinion and methods of negotiation should be developed and used by every nation in order to strengthen the United Nations. Then if we are forced into war, it will be because there has been no way to prevent it through negotiation and the mobilization of world opinion. In which case we should have the voluntary support of many nations, which is far better than the decision of one nation alone, or even of a few nations.

Eleanor Roosevelt
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 have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt
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.

Eleanor Roosevelt
The fundamental right of freedom of thought and expression is essential. If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do.

Eleanor Roosevelt
I'm intensely anxious to preserve the freedom that gives you the right to think and to act and to talk as you please. That I think is essential to happiness and the life of the people.

Eleanor Roosevelt