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@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

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

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“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 (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“All of life is a constant education.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt

“The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“Courage is exhilarating.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

As quoted in Eleanor : The Years Alone (1972) by Joseph P. Lash

“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 (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

“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 (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“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 (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Voice of America broadcast (11 November 1951)

“A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

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

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Foreword (January 1960)
You Learn by Living (1960)
Context: 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.

“It's your life-but only if you make it so.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

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

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1972) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 5

“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do…”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“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 (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

From article "In Defense of Curiosity" appearing in The Saturday Evening Post 208 (August 24, 1935); 8-9, 64-66. As cited in What I Hope to Leave Behind, The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt Edited by Alida M. Black, p 20.
As quoted in Todays Health (October 1966)

“Work is always an antidote to depression.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

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

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

As quoted in "On The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" by Hillary Rodham Clinton in Issues of Democracy Vol. 3, No. 3 (October 1998), p. 11