Eleanor Roosevelt

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall. 

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 lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'  You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

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.

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. 

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.

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.  

I'm so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life!

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

It is not more vacation we need - it is more vocation.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. 

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.  

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

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

The Bible illustrated by Dore occupied many of my hours - and I think probably gave me many nightmares.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

Understanding is a two-way street.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

What you don't do can be a destructive force.

What one has to do usually can be done.

When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water! 

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
 
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.