Eleanor Roosevelt Quotations | Page 3

I have always seen life personally; my interest or sympathy or indignation is not aroused by an abstract cause but by the plight of a single person...Out of my response to an individual develops an awareness of a problem to the community, then to the country, then to the world.

I found that almost everyone had something interesting to contribute to my education.

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

It is a rather curious thing to have to divide one's life into personal and official compartments and temporarily put the personal side into its hidden compartment to be taken out again when one's official duties are at an end.

Life is meant to be lived.

There is no more precious experience in life than friendship. And I am not forgetting love and marriage as I write this; the lovers, or the man and wife, who are not friends are but weakly joined together. One enlarges his circle of friends through contact with many people. One who limits those contacts narrows the circle and frequently his own point of view as well.

I could never say in the morning, "I have a headache and cannot do thus and so". Headache or no headache, thus and so had to be done.

No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling.

We can no longer oversimplify. We can no longer build lazy and false stereotypes: Americans are like this, Russians are like that, a Jew behaves in such a way, a Negro thinks in a different way. The lazy generalities - 'You know how women are ... Isn't that just like a man?' The world cannot be understood from a single point of view.

talking too much is a far greater social fault than talking too little.

I was perfectly certain that I had nothing to offer of an individual nature and that my only chance of doing my duty as the wife of a public official was to do exactly as the majority of women were doing ...

I think that if the atomic bomb did nothing more, it scared the people to the point where they realized that either they must do something about preventing war or there is a chance that there might be a morning when we would not wake up.

experience should teach us that it is always the unexpected that does occur.

I often wonder how we can make the more fortunate in this country fully aware of the fact that the problem of the unemployed is not a mechanical one. It is a problem alive and throbbing with human pain.

I can't tell you how to succeed, but I can tell you how to fail: Try to please everybody.

A successful life for a man or for a woman seems to me to lie in the knowledge that one has developed to the limit the capacities with which one was endowed; that one has contributed something constructive to family and friends and to a home community; that one has brought happiness wherever it was possible; that one has earned one's way in the world, has kept some friends, and need not be ashamed to face oneself honestly.

... many of the things which we deplore, the prevalence of tuberculosis, the mounting record of crime in certain sections of the country, are not due just to lack of education and to physical differences, but are due in great part to the basic fact of segregation which we have set up in this country and which warps and twists the lives not only of our Negro population, but sometimes of foreign born or even of religious groups.

We have come to accept bigger and bigger things as meaning greater and greater efficiency, more and more prosperity and more and more freedom. The two do not go together of necessity ...

Men have to be reminded that women exist.

... the next war will be a war in which people not armies will suffer, and our boasted, hard-earned civilization will do us no good. Cannot the women rise to this great opportunity and work now, and not have the double horror, if another war comes, of losing their loved ones, and knowing that they lifted no finger when they might have worked hard?

I have often felt that I cheated my children a little. I was never so totally theirs as most mothers are. I gave to audiences whatbelonged to my children, got back from audiences the love my children longed to give me.

If you believe that a nation is really better off which achieves for a comparative few, those who are capable of attaining it, high culture, ease, opportunity, and that these few from their enlightenment should give what they consider best to those less favored, then you naturally belong to the Republican Party. But if you believe that people must struggle slowly to the light for themselves, then it seems to me that you are a Democrat.

the fundamental right of freedom of thought and expression is essential. If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do.

I think it is impossible for one human being really to know another without first knowing and being at peace with himself.

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.

I received a most amusing postcard the other morning. Unfortunately, it was not signed in a readable manner so I cannot answer it privately. But it comes from Moblie, Ala., and says: 'Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: You have not answered my question, the amount of Negro blood you have in your veins, if any.' I am afraid none of us know how much nor what kind of blood we have in our veins, since chemically it is all the same. And most of us cannot trace our ancestry more than a few generations.

How can we be such fools as to go on senselessly taking human life in this way? Why the women in every nation do not rise up and refuse to bring children into a world of this kind is beyond my understanding.

I have often thought that less is expected of the president of a great corporation than of an American wife.

it is harder to be philosophical when you are young.

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.

You need not be proud of me.... I'm only being active till you can be again--it isn't such a great desire on my part to serve theworld and I'll fall back into habits of sloth quite easily!

I do not think I will ever become deadened, because I live in other people's lives, I must admit there are times when it weighs medown because I can't do some of the things I want.

As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had something to do--I just did it.

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

Somehow we must be able to show people that democracy is not about words, but action.

We women are callow fledglings as compared with the wise old birds who manipulate the political machinery, and we still hesitate to believe that a woman can fill certain positions in public life as competently and adequately as a man. For instance, it is certain that women do not want a woman for President. Nor would they have the slightest confidence in her ability to fulfill the functions of that office. Every woman who fails in a public position confirms this, but every woman who succeeds creates confidence.

...but there isn't going to be any First Lady. There is just to be plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt...I never wanted to be the president's wife, and don't want it now. You don't quite believe me, do you? Very likely no one would-except possibly some woman who had had the job.

Choose a challenge instead of competence

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

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart.

We need not fear any isms if our democracy is achieving the ends for which it was established ...

Most of the work that's done in the world gets done by people who weren't feeling all that well at the time that they did it.

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

If we fail to meet our problems here, no one else in the world will do so. If we fail, the heart goes out of progressives throughout the world.

Franklin [D. Roosevelt] had a good way of simplifying things. He made people feel that he had a real understanding of things and they felt they had about the same understanding.

Mr. [Richard M.] Nixon never has anything but hindsight.

Poverty is an expensive luxury. We cannot afford it.

It is so much easier to be enthusiastic than to reason!

If we do not pay for children in good schools, then we are going to pay for them in prisons and mental hospitals.

Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without being related to you and repeatedly questioning why you're in nonprofit.

Government exists for one purpose: to make things better for all people.

I believe in active citizenship, for men and women equally, as a simple matter of right and justice. I believe we will have better government in all of our countries when men and women discuss public issues together and make their decisions on the basis of their different areas of experience and their common concern for the welfare of their families and their world.

I'm sure that all the drivers and motorcycle police had once been racing drivers and were eager to get back to that profession.

Terrific minds focus on tips; average minds go over activities; little minds talk about people today.

A number of people still think of the United States as being overwhelmingly English, Protestant, and white. This erroneous idea influences their whole outlook.

Curiously enough, it is often the people who refuse to assume any responsibility who are apt to be the sharpest critics of those who do.

Success is not something that can be measured or worn on a watch or hung on a wall. It is not the esteem of colleagues, or the admiration of the community, or the appreciation of patients. Success is the certain knowledge that you have become yourself, the person you will meant to be from all time. That should be reward enough.

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

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

Of course, I do not believe in having everyone who is a liberal called a communist, or everyone who is conservative called a fascist.

If you have to compromise, be sure to compromise up.

Ability is not something to be saved, like money, in the hope that you can draw interest on it. The interest comes from the spending. Unused ability, like unused muscles, will atrophy. It is tragic to realize that the majority of human beings, even the so-called educated, call upon only the smallest fraction of their potential capacity. They leave many talents dormant. They fail to develop their mental qualities. They are almost unaware of the degree of energy upon which they might call to build a full and rewarding life.

The destiny of human rights is in the hands of all our citizens in all our communities.

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.

For all of us, as we grow older, perhaps the most important thing is to keep alive our love of others and to believe that our love and interest are as vitally necessary to them as to us. This is what makes us keep on growing and refills the fountains of energy.

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

The people who came to New England, came for freedom of religion. The problem is, freedom of religion to them meant freedom for only their religion

If it's a man's game so decidedly that a woman would be soiled by entering it, then there is something radically wrong with the American game of politics.

The basis of all good human behavior is kindness.

Long ago, there was a noble word, liberal, which derives from the word free. Now a strange thing happened to that word. A man named Hitler made it a term of abuse, a matter of suspicion, because those who were not with him were against him, and liberals had no use for Hitler. And then another man named McCarthy cast the same opprobrium on the word. ... We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.

I kept praying that I might be able to prevent a repetition of this stupidity called war. I have tried to keep the promise I made to myself, but the progress that the world is making toward peace seems like the crawling of a little child, very halting and slow.

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

Beautiful old people are works of art.

Nobody else is going to do the things which are yours to be done in the world.

You seem to think that everyone can save money if they have the character to do it. As a matter of fact, there are innumerable people who have a wide choice between saving and giving their children the best possible opportunities. The decision is usually in favor of the children.

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.

The world conspires to help those who are in love with the beauty of their dreams.

A guest is really good or bad because of the host or hostess who makes being a guest an easy or a difficult task.

True hospitality consists of giving the best of yourself to your guests.

How hard it is to project oneself into the future. We are always prone to think of the conditions which are with us today as being permanent conditions.

I have a great belief in spiritual force, but I think we have to realize that spiritual force alone has to have material force with it so long as we live in a material world. The two together make a strong combination.

I think we ought to impress on both our girls and boys that successful marriages require just as much work, just as much intelligence and just as much unselfish devotion, as they give to any position they undertake to fill on a paid basis.

Nothing was ever accomplished by anyone who said 'It can't be done.'

A trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree as we do namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions

I never thought of achievement. I just did what came along for me to do - the thing that gave me the most pleasure.

After the discovery in 1918 of love letters revealing that Franklin was involved with Lucy Mercer: The bottom dropped out of my own particular world, I faced myself, my surroundings, my world, honestly for the first time.

I believe that all that we go through here must have some value.

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...

I wonder if Communists occupied in producing plays are not safer than Communists starving to death. I have always felt that whatever your beliefs might be, if you could earn enough to keep body and soul together and had to be pretty busy doing that, you would not be very apt to have time to plot the overthrow of any existing government.

...real prosperity can only come when everybody prospers.

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

So I took an interest in politics, but I don't know whether I enjoyed it! It was a wife's duty to be interested in whatever interested her husband, whether it was politics, books, or a particular dish for dinner.

There is nothing to regret - either for those who go or for those who are left behind

For instance, it is certain that women do not want a woman for President. Nor would they have the slightest confidence in her ability to fulfill the functions of that office.

On the whole our armed services have been doing pretty well in the way of keeping us defended, but I hope our State Department will remember that it is really the department of achieving peace.

The choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Some people are going to leave a mark on this world, while others will leave a stain.

Success in marriage depends on being able, when you get over being in love, to really love....You never know anyone until you marry them.

Staying aloof is not a solution, it is a cowardly evasion.

Happiness isn't a goal. It's a by-product.