Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She served as the First Lady of the United States from March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms in office, making her the longest-serving First Lady of the United States. These Eleanor Roosevelt quotes will motivate you.
Best Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
- “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader,
a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt - “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt quotes on inferiority
- “For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom, and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and goodwill, and a constant and earnest striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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“A woman is like a teabag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “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.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Some people are going to leave a mark on this world, while others will leave a stain.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “We gain strength and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt quotes on fear
- “Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “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
- “Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.” ~ 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
- “People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “I can’t tell you how to succeed, but I can tell you how to fail: Try to please everybody.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “If human beings can be trained for cruelty and greed and a belief in power which comes through hate and fear and force, certainly we can train equally well for greatness and mercy and the power of love which comes because of the strength of the good qualities to be found in the soul of every human being.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “If human beings can be trained for cruelty and greed and a belief in power which comes through hate and fear and force, certainly we can train equally well for greatness and mercy and the power of love which comes because of the strength of the good qualities to be found in the soul of every human being.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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“Do one thing every day that scares you.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world … Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt quotes on human rights
- “It’s your life – but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. 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
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“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” ~ 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
- “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.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Long ago, there was a noble word, liberal, which derives from the word free. Now a strange thing happened to that word. A man named Hitler made it a term of abuse, a matter of suspicion because those who were not with him were against him, and liberals had no use for Hitler. And then another man named McCarthy cast the same opprobrium on the word. … We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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“Caring comes from being able to put yourself in the position of the other person.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.” ~ 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 life
- “Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “…without equality, there can be no democracy.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Education is the cornerstone of liberty.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
- “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
- “If you lose money you lose much, If you lose friends you lose more, If you lose faith you lose all.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.”
- “Basically we could not have peace or an atmosphere in which peace could grow unless we recognized the rights of individual human beings… their importance, their dignity… and agreed that was the basic thing that had to be accepted throughout the world.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. Anger is only one letter short of danger. If someone betrays you once, it is his fault; if he betrays you twice, it is your fault. Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. He who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses much more; he who loses faith loses all.” ~ 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
