Best 464 quotes of Eleanor Roosevelt on MyQuotes

Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.

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.

I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

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 believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do.

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.

I believe that it is a great mistake not to stand up for people, even when you differ with them, if you feel that they are trying to do things that will help our country.

I believe that it is essential to our leadership in the world and to the development of true democracy in our country to have no discrimination in our country whatsoever. This is most important in the schools of our country.

I believe you should tell the story of injustices, of inequalities, of bad conditions, so that the people as a whole in this country really face the problems that people who are pushed to the point of striking know all about, but others know practically nothing about.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

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

I carried it (a revolver) religiously and during the summer I asked a friend, a man who had been one of Franklin's bodyguards in New York State, to give me some practice in target shooting so that if the need arose I would know how to use the gun.

I consider those are rich who are doing something they feel worthwhile and which they enjoy doing.

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.

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 not, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." Another "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.

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.

I do not want church groups controlling the schools of our country. They must remain free.

I don't know much about Capitalism, but I do know about Democracy and freedom, and if Capitalism may change in many, many ways, I'm not really very much interested in Capitalism.

If anyone were to ask me what I want out of life I would say- the opportunity for doing something useful, for in no other way, I am convinced, can true happiness be attained.

I feel quite sure that the American people, if they have knowledge and leadership, can meet any crisis just as well as they met it over and over again in the past.

If everything was in your favor, if you did not have to surmount any great mountains, then you have nothing to be proud of. But if you feel that you have special difficulties, then you must indeed be proud of your achievement.

If human beings can be trained for cruelty and greed and a belief in power which comes through hate and fear and force, certainly we can train equally well for greatness and mercy and the power of love which comes because of the strength of the good qualities to be found in the soul of every human being.

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

If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.

If many of our young people have lost the excitement of the early settlers, who had a country to explore and develop, it is because no one remembers to tell them that the world has never been so challenging, so exciting... Perhaps the older generation is often to blame with its cautious warning: “Take a job that will give you security, not adventure.” But I say to the young: “Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, and imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.

If quitting smoking seems hard right now, it is exactly what you should start doing

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

If the use of leisure time is confined to looking at TV for a few extra hours every day, we will deteriorate as a people.

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

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.

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.

If you approach each new person you meet in a spirit of adventure, you will find yourself endlessly fascinated by the new channels of thought and experience and personality that you encounter.

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.

If you can develop this ability to see what you look at, to understand its meaning, to readjust your knowledge to this new information, you can continue to learn and to grow as long as you live and you’ll have a wonderful time doing it.

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

If you lose money you lose much, If you lose friends you lose more, If you lose faith you lose all.

If you prepare yourself at every point as well as you can, with whatever means you may have, however meager they may seem, you will be able to grasp opportunity for broader experience when it appears. Without preparation you cannot do it.

I have always felt that it was important that everyone who was a worker join a labor organization.

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.

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 have a great objection to seeing anyone, particularly anyone whom I care about, lose his self-control.

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 have learned long ago to possess my soul in patience and accept the inevitable.

I have never believed that war settled anything satisfactorily, but I am not entirely sure that some times there are certain situations in the world such as we have in actuality when a country is worse off when it does not go to war for its principles than if it went to war.

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.

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

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

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.

I know that given great responsibility men sometimes change, but Mr. Nixon's Presidency would worry me.