Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes - Page 2

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

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.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

Once I 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.

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

What you don't do can be a destructive force.

If we want a free and peaceful world if we want to make the deserts bloom and man grow to greater dignity as a human being-we can do it.

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.

For 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.

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

This is your life, not someone else's. It is your own feeling of what is important, not what people will say. Sooner or later, you are bound to discover that you cannot please all of the people around you all of the time. Some of t hem will attribute to you motives you never dreamed of. Some of them will misinterpret your words and actions, making them completely alien to you. So you had better learn fairly early that you must not expect to have everyone understand what you say and what you do.

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

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.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. 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

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

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

I could not at any age be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never for whatever reason turn his back on life.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

...no matter how avid they themselves may be for praise and appreciation, people are often niggardly in giving it to others, however merited it is.

The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.

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 experiences behind him.

What one has to do usually can be done.

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 would be curiosity.

I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.

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.

It seems to me that I cannot afford, as a self-respecting individual, to refuse to do a thing merely because it will make me disliked or bring down a storm of criticism on my head.

...no one can afford not to be a man. No position can compensate for coming face to face with a robot when you are alone.

Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.

It is often the people who refuse to assume any responsibility who are apt to be the sharpest critics of those who do.

Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else.

All of life is a constant education.

No leader can be too far ahead of his followers.

No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

...our children must learn...to face full responsibility for their actions, to make their own choices and cope with the results...the whole democratic system...depends upon it. For our system is founded on self-government, which is untenable if the individuals who make up the system are unable to govern themselves.

Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.

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.

If you want a world ruled by law and not by force you must build up, from the very grassroots, a respect for law.

I have never felt that anything really mattered but knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.

You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.

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

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.