These famous Eleanor Roosevelt quotes on human rights, life, and women will inspire you to believe in the beauty of your dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt Biography
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, was an American political figure, author, diplomat, and activist. She served as the first lady of the U.S. during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (1934-45) four terms in office. That made Eleanor the longest-serving first lady of the U.S.
From the start, having a difficult childhood, losing her parents and brother at a young age, she went to London for further studies and was influenced by its headmistress. Later, When she returned to the U.S., she married her fifth cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905. She has had complications in her marriage because of her controlling mother-in-law and her husband’s affair. Roosevelt was much more than just the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was an outspoken public figure.
Roosevelt not only transformed the office of the First lady but also changed the way Americans see women in public life. She remains in controversy for her outspoken behavior for civil rights mainly for African-Americans. She held regular press conferences, writes a daily news daily newspaper and a monthly magazine column, hosted a weekly radio show while helping to raise the six children she had with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Later she stepped out of the imposing shadow of his husband and continued her work in politics. Following the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945, she stayed active for the remaining years of her life. She served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. After that, she served as the UN Commission on Human Rights where she contributed to what she thinks of her greatest achievement: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later she has been famous with the title of “First Lady of the World” as a tribute for her work for human rights.
Even though she remained controversial at her time but today she is remembered as one of the most important America’s women leaders. She had published so many books and work throughout her career and she still continues to inspire people of all backgrounds through Eleanor Roosevelt’s quotes and actions she takes at her time.
Eleanor Roosevelt Books
- Hunting Big Game in the Eighties: The Letters of Elliott Roosevelt, Sportsman (1932)
- When You Grow Up to Vote (1932)
- It’s Up to the Women (1933)
- A Trip to Washington with Bobby and Betty (1935)
- This Is My Story (1937)
- My Days (1938)
- This Troubled World (1938)
- Christmas: A Story (1940)
- The Moral Basis of Democracy (1940)
- This is America, a 1942 book with text by Eleanor Roosevelt and photographs by Frances Cooke Macgregor.
- If You Ask Me (1946)
- This I Remember (1949)
- Partners: The United Nations and Youth (1950) (with Helen Ferris).
- India and the Awakening East (1953)
- UN: Today and Tomorrow (1953) (with William DeWitt).
- It Seems to Me (1954)
- Ladies of Courage (1954) (with Lorena Hickok)
- United Nations: What You Should Know about It (1955)
- On My Own (1958)
- Growing Toward Peace (1960) (with Regina Tor)
- You Learn By Living (1960)
- The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961)
- Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- What Are We For? : The Words and Ideals of Eleanor Roosevelt
- Courage in a Dangerous World
- Your Teens and Mine (1961)
- Eleanor Roosevelt’s Book of Common Sense Etiquette (1962) (assisted by Robert O. Ballou).
- Tomorrow Is Now (1963)
Here we are sharing a collection of famous Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes for you to get inspired and work hard.
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
“Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
It’s your life but only if you make it so.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person’s stature is as large as one’s own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes Great Minds
“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Every time you meet a situation you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Courage is exhilarating.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“It is a brave thing to have the 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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“What you don’t do can be a destructive force.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time. But if you have more projects than you have time for, you are not going to be an unhappy person. This is as much a question of having imagination and curiosity as it is of actually making plans.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not arriving at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Famous Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
“Every woman wants to be first to someone sometime in her life and that desire is the explanation for many strange things women do.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Do whatever comes your way to do as well as you can. Think as little as possible about yourself. Think as much as possible about other people. Dwell on things that are interesting. Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else … you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“All of life is a constant education.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“There is no human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes About Marines
“As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. ”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Don’t call a woman a bitch. Call her an ass-hole. It still gets your point across and it’s not sexist.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes Small Minds
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual you have an obligation to be one.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You should always own a black dress because no one ever remembers a black dress.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“There are no have-to’s, just choices”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never be bored, and you will never be boring.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes On Human Rights
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Be confident, not certain”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on. ”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You always admire what you really don’t understand.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dream world 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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes About Fear
“Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, Eleanor, and Franklin
“He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for a newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes On Woman
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life. ”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, The Wisdom Of Eleanor Roosevelt
“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Work is always an antidote to depression.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do …”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes On Dreams
“Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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 in 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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, It Seems to Me: Selected Letters
“It seems to me of great importance to teach children respect for life. Towards this end, experiments on living animals in classrooms should be stopped. To encourage cruelty in the name of science can only destroy the finer emotions of affection and sympathy, and breed an unfeeling callousness in the young towards suffering in all living creatures.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Understanding is a two-way street.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“There is nothing to fear except fear itself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run, it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“If you lose the money you lose much,
If you lose friends you lose more,
If you lose faith you lose all.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes On Life
“I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“We have reached a point today where labor-saving devices are good only when they do not throw the worker out of his job.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“To be a citizen in a democracy, a human being must be given a healthy start.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“THE GREATEST GIVE YOU CAN GIVE A CHILD IS AN IMAGINATION”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one’s world.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“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.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Once I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: “No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say
yes.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Did these Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes inspire you?
Eleanor Roosevelt was outspoken and courageous. She used her knowledge and position to inspire others and never misused her power. She was not content in the background, found her voice in public service, helped the poor citizens, and fought for human and women’s rights. At her time and still is, she was one of the most powerful women. She set a great example for the future generation.
We hope you will admire Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes as much as we do and take some of the inspiring messages with you and apply them to your life.
Do share your thoughts with us in the comment section and tell us which one was your favorite Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes or if you want to ask any questions or have any query send them via Contact Us
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