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

—  Eleanor Roosevelt

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built." by Eleanor Roosevelt?
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
Eleanor Roosevelt 148
American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady… 1884–1962

Related quotes

Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo

“Character, courage, industry and perseverance are the four pillars on which the whole edifice of human life can be built and failure is a word unknown to me.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

As quoted in Mohammad Ali Jinnah : A Political Study (1962) by M. H. Saiyid, p. 9

Baba Hari Dass photo

“Work honestly, meditate every day, meet people without fear, and play.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Source: Ashtanga Yoga Primer, 1981, p.74

Clarence Darrow photo

“All men do the best they can. But none meet life honestly and few heroically.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

As quoted in Infidels and Heretics : An Agnostic's Anthology (1929) edited by Clarence Darrow and Wallace Rice, p. 206

Jean Webster photo

“It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

Hermann Hesse photo

“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Source: Demian (1919), p. 123
Context: People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. It was a scandal that a breed of fearless and sinister people ran around freely, so they attached a nickname and a myth to these people to get even with them, to make up for the many times they had felt afraid.

“The successful managers know that the best way for their people to learn and grow is through experience and that means taking chances and making errors.”

Robert W. Bly (1957) American writer

101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)

Abraham Lincoln photo

“You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Billy Collins photo

“The person in the poem is a character like a character in fiction whom the poet has invented--without clothes or a family, or a place of birth, just a voice--to convey himself. Any resemblance he bears to the poet you meet on a signing line is slightly less than coincidental. Meeting the author is one of life's most reliably disappointing experiences, not because authors are such nasty people, but because you have already met them under the best possible circumstance--on the page.”

Billy Collins (1941) American poet

Interview with Kritya: In the Name of Poetry

W. H. Auden photo

“Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another; they might also ask themselves how much poetry of any period they can honestly say that they understand.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

The Dyer's Hand (1955), in the BBC weekly The Listener (30 June 1955)

Adyashanti photo

“One of the exciting things about today is [that] people are not, for the most part (…) even in their spiritual domain, they're not satisfied necessarily with just an internal revelatory spiritual experience anymore. Most people that I meet are hooked up in such a way that it only is really deeply meaningful to them unless it actually starts to transform how they move and experience… their contribution to life.”

Adyashanti (1962) Spiritual teacher

Wake Up San Francisco event (2015)
Source: Alanis Morissette - Wake Up San Francisco with Adyashanti & Tami Simon - YouTube (starts at 11:43) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_ClddVgJs

Related topics