Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. In that time she carved out the position we consider today that of the First Lady, as a diplomat to public service and social reform. Not satisfied to hide in the shadow of her husband the president, Eleanor was an active political force in her own right, an intelligent, eloquent female who worked ferociously for those that could not speak out for themselves. To this day she is considered the measuring rod that all first ladies are held up to, and she continues to be an inspiration and aspiration for active females the world over.
“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. ”
“A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”
“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 should be curiosity.”
“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.”
“Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”
“Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.”
“I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.”
“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.”
“If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.”
“My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.”
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.”
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
“One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.”
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
“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.”
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
“Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.”
“Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”
“What is to give light must endure the burning.”
