Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

“It is impossible to be a cynic if you live a good deal with young people. Fundamentally, every young person has a feeling that the future is going to hold something of value.”

“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.”

“This freedom of which men speak, for which they fight, seems to some people a perilous thing. It has to be earned at a bitter cost and then — it has to be lived with. For freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.”

“At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want... for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war.”

“I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.”

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

“There is a desire for progress in the hearts of all men, and it is the sense of frustration and inability to move forward that brings violent revolution.”

“Mahatma Gandhi I would say had perhaps a greater spiritual quality whereas Winston Churchill had besides the courage, ability and above everything else, the ability to put into words what his people felt so that he could always lead them. And my own husband I think had great patience, which you need in a democracy because you have to come to do fundamental things, you have to have the patience to have people educated; and then I think he had a deep interest in human beings as human beings.”

“We need emotional outlets in this country, and the more artistic people we develop the better it will be for us as a nation.”

“People can only make you inferior with your consent.”

“Do not be afraid of mistakes, provided you do not make the same one twice.”

“Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.”

“Strength that goes wrong is even more dangerous than weakness that goes wrong.”

“If you have any interests you can gain a wider audience for those interests while the goldfish bowl is yours!”

“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.”

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

“Comparison is the thief of all joy.”

“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.”

“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.”

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

“One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. 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.”

“Obedience may have its uses, but it is no substitute for willing, uncoerced co-operation.”

“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.”

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

“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.”