Eleanor Roosevelt

"I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behaviour."

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

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be "damned if you do, and damned if you don't.""

"Understanding is a two-way street."

"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."

"We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk."

"To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times — The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give."

"Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life."

"My husband plunged into work on a speech and I went off to work on an article. Midnight came and bed for all, and all that was said was "good night, sleep well, pleasant dreams, with the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.'"

"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 should be curiosity."

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

"I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision."

"Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world."

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?"

"You get more joy out of the giving to others, and should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give."

"I think I have a good deal of my Uncle Theodore in me, because I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on."

"On April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman received an urgent summons from the White House. When he arrived, Eleanor Roosevelt told him, “The President is dead.” Truman asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?” Mrs. Roosevelt responded, “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.”"

"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 against a wall"."

"Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior."

"The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give."

"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."

"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."

"One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. … All you need to do is to be curious, receptive, eager for experience. And there's one strange thing: when you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else."

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

"A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity."

"Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively."

""Anxiety," Kierkegaard said, "is the dizziness of freedom." 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. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect. We must all face an unpalatable fact that we have, too often, a tendency to skim over; we proceed on the assumption that all men want freedom. This is not as true as we would like it to be. Many men and women who are far happier when they have relinquish their freedom, when someone else guides them, makes their decisions for them, takes the responsibility for them and their actions. They don't want to make up their minds. They don't want to stand on their own feet."

"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. (1 April 1939)"

"I was one of those who was very happy when the original prohibition amendment passed. I thought innocently that a law in this country would automatically be complied with, and my own observation led me to feel rather ardently that the less strong liquor anyone consumed the better it was. During prohibition I observed the law meticulously, but I came gradually to see that laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law. (14 July 1939)"

"Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land. (14 July 1939)"

"Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people? (16 October 1939)"

"No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling. (20 December 1939)"

"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. (23 February 1940)"

"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. (17 May 1940)"

"Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little. (1 July 1940)"

"One should always sleep in all of one's guest beds, to make sure that they are comfortable. (11 September 1941)"

"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. (14 January 1942)"

"One of the blessings of age is to learn not to part on a note of sharpness, to treasure the moments spent with those we love, and to make them whenever possible good to remember, for time is short. (5 February 1943)"

"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. (15 April 1943)"

"One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted. (11 May 1943)"

"Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth. (22 August 1944)"

"I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could. (8 November 1944)"

"It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself. (15 June 1946)"

"I have waited a while before saying anything about the Un-American Activities Committee's current investigation of the Hollywood film industry. I would not be very much surprised if some writers or actors or stagehands, or what not, were found to have Communist leanings, but I was surprised to find that, at the start of the inquiry, some of the big producers were so chicken-hearted about speaking up for the freedom of their industry. One thing is sure — none of the arts flourishes on censorship and repression. And by this time it should be evident that the American public is capable of doing its own censoring. Certainly, the Thomas Committee is growing more ludicrous daily. (29 October 1947)"

"The film industry is a great industry with infinite possibilities for good and bad. Its primary purpose is to entertain people. On the side, it can do many other things. It can popularize certain ideals, it can make education palatable. But in the long run, the judge who decides whether what it does is good or bad is the man or woman who attends the movies. In a democratic country I do not think the public will tolerate a removal of its right to decide what it thinks of the ideas and performances of those who make the movie industry work. (29 October 1947)"

"What is going on in the Un-American Activities Committee worries me primarily because little people have become frightened and we find ourselves living in the atmosphere of a police state, where people close doors before they state what they think or look over their shoulders apprehensively before they express an opinion. I have been one of those who have carried the fight for complete freedom of information in the United Nations. And while accepting the fact that some of our press, our radio commentators, our prominent citizens and our movies may at times be blamed legitimately for things they have said and done, still I feel that 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. In our country we must trust the people to hear and see both the good and the bad and to choose the good. The Un-American Activities Committee seems to me to be better for a police state than for the USA. (29 October 1947)"

"The mobilization of world opinion and methods of negotiation should be developed and used by every nation in order to strengthen the United Nations. Then if we are forced into war, it will be because there has been no way to prevent it through negotiation and the mobilization of world opinion. In which case we should have the voluntary support of many nations, which is far better than the decision of one nation alone, or even of a few nations. (16 April 1954)"

"This is a time for action — not for war, but for mobilization of every bit of peace machinery. It is also a time for facing the fact that you cannot use a weapon, even though it is the weapon that gives you greater strength than other nations, if it is so destructive that it practically wipes out large areas of land and great numbers of innocent people. (16 April 1954 )"

"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. (5 November 1958)"

"The arts in every field — music, drama, sculpture, painting — we can learn to appreciate and enjoy. We need not be artists, but we should be able to appreciate the work of artists. (5 November 1958)"