Eleanor Roosevelt citations

Page 5

Cited as a piece of anonymous folk-wisdom from the 1940s onwards https://books.google.com/books?id=iNkWAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Learn+from+the+mistakes+of+others.+You+can%27t+live+long+enough+to+make+them+all+yourself%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22make+them+all+yourself%22. Not attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt until 2001 https://books.google.com/books?id=ctxi36FCi18C&pg=PA151&dq=%22Learn+from+the+mistakes+of+others%22+%22live+long%22+roosevelt&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI_sD5mqDLAhWIKGMKHb8HAZ0Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%22Learn%20from%20the%20mistakes%20of%20others%22%20%22live%20long%22%20roosevelt&f=false.
Disputed

5 November 1958
My Day (1935–1962)

1 July 1940
My Day (1935–1962)

20 December 1961
My Day (1935–1962)

11 September 1941
My Day (1935–1962)

Some evidence for Henry Buckle (1821-1862) as the source: see p.33 quotation https://books.google.com/books?id=2moaAAAAYAAJ&q=buckle#v=snippet&q=buckle&f=false
There are many published incidents of this as an anonymous proverb since at least 1948, and as a statement of Eleanor Roosevelt since at least 1992, but without any citation of an original source. It is also often attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover but, though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of it; in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..."
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and little minds discuss people.
In this form it was quoted as an anonymous epigram in A Guide to Effective Public Speaking (1953) by Lawrence Henry Mouat
New York times Saturday review of books and art, 1931: ...Wanted, the correct quotation and origin of this expression: Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people...
Several other variants or derivatives of the expression exist, but none provide a definite author:
Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities.
Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people
Small minds discuss things
Average minds discuss people
Great minds discuss ideas
...Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. (Marie Curie, undated (died 1934), as quoted in Living Adventures in Science by Henry and Dana Lee Thomas, 1972)
...Some professor of psychology who has been eavesdropping for years makes the statement that "The best minds discuss ideas; the second in ranking talk about things; while the third group, or the least in mentality, gossip about people"… (Hardware age, Volume 123, 1929)
...He now reports that, "the best minds discuss ideas; the second ranking talks about things; while the third and lowest mentality – starved for ideas – gossips about people." (Printers' Ink, Volume 139, Issue 2, 1927, p. 87)
...It has been said long ago that there were three classes of people in the world, and while they are subject to variation, for elemental consideration they are useful. The first is that large class of people who talk about people; the next class are those who talk about things; and the third class are those who discuss ideas... (H. J. Derbyshire, "Origin of mental species", 1919)
...Mrs. Conklin points out certain bad conversational habits and suggests good ones, quoting Buckle's classic classification of talkers into three orders of intelligence — those who talk about nothing but persons, those who talk about things and those who discuss ideas... (review of Mary Greer Conklin's book Conversation: What to say and how to say it in The Continent, Jan. 23, 1913, p. 118)
...[ Henry Thomas Buckle's ] thoughts and conversations were always on a high level, and I recollect a saying of his which not only greatly impressed me at the time, but which I have ever since cherished as a test of the mental calibre of friends and acquaintances. Buckle said, in his dogmatic way: "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons, the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas"… (Charles Stewart, "Haud immemor. Reminescences of legal and social life in Edinburgh and London. 1850-1900", 1901, p. 33 http://www.mocavo.com/Haud-Immemor-by-Charles-Stewart-Reminiscences-of-Life-in-Edinburgh-and-London-1850-1900/608008/13?browse=true#63).
Disputed

In a letter to Lorena Hickok, March 7, 1933

11 May 1943
My Day (1935–1962)

Source: Tomorrow Is Now (1963), p. 80

The quote is usually regarded as anonymous, but is often attributed to her on several websites, as well as in several books, including My Life Is an Open Book http://books.google.es/books?id=qCOa1k--dt4C&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=eleanor%20roosevelt&f=false (2008), The Spirituality of Mary Magdalene http://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=BLRuINwzVZcC&dq=eleanor+roosevelt++%22past+is+history%22&q=eleanor+roosevelt#v=snippet&q=eleanor%20roosevelt&f=false (2008), Mis cuatro estaciones http://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=QCgANqKq8EIC&dq=ayer+es+historia%2C+ma%C3%B1ana++misterio.+Hoy+regalo+de+Dios+presente&q=%22eleanor+roosevelt%22#v=snippet&q=%22eleanor%20roosevelt%22&f=false (2008), and Gilles Lamontagne http://books.google.es/books?ei=MdG9UqGQK-fL2wX5zYC4Dw&hl=es&id=WyFKAQAAIAAJ&dq=Hier+est+de+l%27histoire%2C+demain+est+un+myst%C3%A8re+et+aujourd%27hui+est+un+cadeau.+C%27+est+pourquoi+nous+l%27appelons+%C2%AB+le+pr%C3%A9sent+roosevelt&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=eleanor+roosevelt (2010). None of these works cite any original reference.
Disputed

Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 63

17 May 1940
My Day (1935–1962)

Tomorrow Is Now (1963)

23 February 1940
My Day (1935–1962)

As quoted in The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America (2002) by James MacGregor Burns ad Susan Dunn, p. 563
Variante: I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.

Preface (December 1960) to The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961), p. xvi; the last line was originally used in the initial edition of her autobiography: This Is My Story (1937)

Source: Tomorrow Is Now (1963), p. 134

14 January 1942
My Day (1935–1962)

20 December 1939
My Day (1935–1962)

from "My Day" (January 8, 1936)
Source: https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1936&_f=md054227 Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day, January 8, 1936," The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition (2017), accessed 7/24/2018, https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1936&_f=md054227.

Source: Tomorrow Is Now (1963), p. 71

As quoted in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944; 1948) by Dale Carnegie; though Roosevelt has sometimes been credited with the originating the expression, "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is set in quote marks, indicating she herself was quoting a common expression in saying this. Actually, this saying was coined back even earlier, 1836, by evangelist Lorenzo Dow in his sermons about ministers saying the Bible contradicts itself, telling his listeners, "… those who preach it up, to make the Bible clash and contradict itself, by preaching somewhat like this: 'You can and you can't-You shall and you shan't-You will and you won't-And you will be damned if you do-And you will be damned if you don't.' "

Deliberately misattributed for comic effect in the opening of the film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
Misattributed

Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 95