Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

“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.”

“Each generation supposes that the world was simpler for the one before it.”

“It is always disagreeable to take stands. It is always easier to compromise, always easier to let things go. To many women, and I am one of them, it is extraordinarily difficult to care about anything enough to cause disagreement or unpleasant feelings, but I have come to the conclusion that this must be done for a time until we can prove our strength and demand respect for our wishes. We cannot even be of real service in the coming campaign and speak as a united body of women unless we have the respect of men and show that when we express a wish, we are willing to stand by it.”

“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.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”

“In the long run there is no more exhilarating experience than to determine one's position, state it bravely and then act boldly.”

“Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.”

“As with all children, the feeling that I was useful was perhaps the greatest joy I experienced.”

“One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.”

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

“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.”

“Organize first for knowledge, first with the object of making us know ourselves as a nation, for we have to do that before we canbe of value to other nations of the world and then organize to accomplish the things that you decide to want. Anddon't make decisions with the interest of youth alone before you. Make your decisions because they are good for the nation as a whole.”

“it is always easier to do nothing than to try a new line of action.”

“One should always sleep in all of one's guest beds, to make sure that they are comfortable.”

“Be confident, not certain”

“Nothing alive can stand still, it goes forward or back. Life is interesting only as long as it is a process of growth; or, to put it another way, we can only grow as long as we are interested.”

“Because they have so little, children must rely on imagination rather than experience.”

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

“Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.”

“First of my own personal requirements is inner calm. This, I think, is an essential. One of the secrets of using your time well is to gain a certain ability to maintain peace within yourself so that much can go on around you and you can stay calm inside.”

“What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?”

“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.”

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

“We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity.”

“A woman has, first of all, her duties in their own home, and there are many women particularly when they're young, who can do an active job in their community like being a mayor, but who cannot go to Washington or Albany or wherever the capital of the state is. There are others who can, can leave home, whose children are older and so forth. I think it all is a personal decision.”