Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts."

"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."

"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.'"

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

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"The giving of love is an education in itself."

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"Understanding is a two-way street."

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

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

"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."

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