Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

214 Sourced Quotes

You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself.

Eleanor Roosevelt
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.

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
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.

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
A great deal of fear is a result of just not knowing. We do not know what is involved in a new situation. We do not know whether we can deal with it. The sooner we learn what it entails, the sooner we can dissolve our fear.

Eleanor Roosevelt
In times past, the question usually asked by women was "How can we best help to defend our nation?" I cannot remember a time when the question on so many people's lips was "How can we prevent war?"
There is a widespread understanding among the people of this nation, and probably among the people of the world, that there is no safety except through the prevention of war. For many years war has been looked upon as almost inevitable in the solution of any question that has arisen between nations, and the nation that was strong enough to do so went about building up its defenses and its power to attack. It felt that it could count on these two things for safety.

Eleanor Roosevelt
We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a real sense, by the time we are adults, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.

Eleanor Roosevelt
We face the future fortified with the lessons we have learned from the past. It is today that we must create the world of the future. Spinoza, I think, pointed out that we ourselves can make experience valuable when, by imagination and reason, we turn it into foresight.

Eleanor Roosevelt
You gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face.... You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt
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
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.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Those who attack always do so with greater fervor than those who defend.

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

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

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
Practically nothing we do ever stands by itself. If it is good, it will serve some good purpose in the future. If it is evil, it may haunt us and handicap our efforts in unimagined ways.

Eleanor Roosevelt
The separation of church and state is extremely important to any of us who holds to the original traditions of our nation.... To change these traditions... would be harmful to our whole attitude of tolerance in the religious area. If we look at situations which have arisen in the past in Europe and other world areas, I think we will see the reason why it is wise to hold to our early traditions.

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

Eleanor Roosevelt
Always be on time. Never try to make any personal engagements. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Never be disturbed by anything. Always do what you're told to do as quickly as possible. Remember to lean back in a parade, so that people can see your husband. Don't get too fat to ride three on a seat. Get out of the way as quickly as you're not needed.

Eleanor Roosevelt
It has been a long fight to put the control of our economic system in the hands of the government.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Any citizen should be willing to give all that he has to give his country in work or sacrifice in times of crisis.

Eleanor Roosevelt
If you take stands in any way and people feel that you have any success in - a following, why those who disagree with you are going to feel very strongly about it.

Eleanor Roosevelt
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
A respect for the rights of other peoples to determine their forms of government and their economy will not weaken our democracy. It will inevitably strengthen it.

Eleanor Roosevelt