Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) was an American humanitarian and diplomat. She was the first lady from 1933 until 1945, longer than any other president’s wife. She was an active advocate for human and civil rights and an early icon of the women’s rights movement.
Born in New York City to a prosperous family, Eleanor was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1905, she married Franklin D. Roosevelt, her fifth cousin (once removed.) After he developed poliomyelitis in 1921, Eleanor helped him deal with the ailment and became his confidante and adviser. She assumed many of his public duties when he served first as governor of New York and then as president.
As her husband’s “eyes and ears,” Eleanor oversaw government officials as well as American troops before and during World War II. She also campaigned for improved employment opportunities for women and minorities.
Eleanor served a U.S. representative to the General Assembly of the United Nations (1945–53, 1961–62.) As chairperson of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, she helped draft the Declaration of Human Rights (1948.)
Roosevelt was a prolific writer; she wrote a syndicated and influential newspaper column for over twenty years. She also wrote It’s Up to the Women (1933,) This Troubled World (1938,) The Moral Basis of Democracy (1940,) and India and the Awakening East (1953.) She is also noted for her autobiographies This Is My Story (1937,) This I Remember (1949,) and On My Own (1958.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Eleanor Roosevelt
It isn’t enough to talk about peace, one must believe it. And it isn’t enough to to believe in it, one must work for it.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Peace, Belief
The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. “Love they neighbor as thyself.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Peace
A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Simplicity
Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Mistakes, Failures
You get more joy out of giving joy to others and should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Joy
It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Character, Honesty
What one has to do usually can be done.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Necessity
Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Immortality
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
Topics: Obligation, Being Ourselves
If you have any interests you can gain a wider audience for those interests while the goldfish bowl is yours!
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Audiences
The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Mistakes, Failures
I learned then that practically no one in the world is entirely bad or entirely good, and that motives are often more important than actions.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Good, Act, Learn, Action
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
Topics: Motivational
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
Topics: Being True to Yourself, Criticism, Critics, Courage, Individuality, Art
All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another’s failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves. If at the end one can say, This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him; he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task, then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Failure
I could not, at any age, be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. The fatal thing is the rejection. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Curiosity, How to Live, Life, Living Well, Life and Living, Living
The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Freedom
I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Opposition, Dissent
If I feel depressed, I go to work. Work is always an antidote to depression.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Habits
Every time you meet a situation, though you think at the time it is 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
What basic objective I had, for many years, was to grasp every opportunity to live and experience life as deeply, as fully, and as widely as I possibly could.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Purpose
It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Energy, Planning
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
Topics: Books, Reading
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Strength
I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Fear, Anxiety
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Justice, Peace
Somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Self-Discovery, Being Ourselves, Decisions, Discovery, Self-Knowledge, Awareness
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Emotions, Acceptance, Realization, Inferiority, Character, Feel, Awareness, Self-Esteem, Self Confidence, Confidence
Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Topics: Character
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