WIST

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

What one has to do usually can be done.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

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

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)
Quoted in H. Clinton, "On The Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Issues of Democracy (Oct 1998).

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

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)
Sometimes cited to her autobiography This is My Story (1937), but not found in that book. It seems to have been inspired by a comment she made in 1935: "A snub is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior." The quotation was in its present form (and attributed to her) by 1940. More information here.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

I want to be able to sit down with anyone who may have a new idea and not be afraid of contamination by association. In a democracy you must be able to meet with people and argue your point of view–people whom you have not screened beforehand. That must be part of the freedom of people in the United States.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

Quoted in J. Lash, <i>Eleanor: The Years Alone</i> (1972)

To have a friend who knows you by name gives you a sense that you are not alone in the world.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

Quoted in J. Lash, <i>Eleanor: The Years Alone</i> (1972)

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (1 Apr 1939)

One should always sleep in all of one’s guest beds, to make sure that they are comfortable.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (11 Sep 1941)

Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (14 Jul 1939)
On Prohibition.

I was one of those who was very happy when the original prohibition amendment passed. I thought innocently that a law in this country would automatically be complied with, and my own observation led me to feel rather ardently that the less strong liquor anyone consumed the better it was. During prohibition I observed the law meticulously, but I came gradually to see that laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (14 Jul 1939)

At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want — for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (15 Apr 1943)

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (16 Oct 1939)

And while accepting the fact that some of our press, our radio commentators, our prominent citizens and our movies may at times be blamed legitimately for things they have said and done, still I feel that the fundamental right of freedom of thought and expression is essential. If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do. In our country we must trust the people to hear and see both the good and the bad and to choose the good.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (29 Oct 1947)

On the House Un-American Activities Committee

I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
My Day (8 Nov 1944)

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
New York Times (1960)

To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times — The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, Preface (1961)

The last line was originally in her autobiography This Is My Story (1937).

We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
The Nation Magazine (1940)

Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
This Is My Story (1937)

We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity. In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Tomorrow Is Now (1963)

There never has been security. No man has ever known what he would meet around the next corner; if life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Tomorrow Is Now (1963)

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 (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
You Learn by Living (1960)

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 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 (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
You Learn by Living (1960)

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. 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.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
You Learn by Living, Foreword (1960)

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. 

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Letter to Cardinal Spellman (23 Jul 1949)

Full text.

Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Letter to Cardinal Spellman (23 Jul 1949)

Full text.

Criticism … makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Letter to Carrie Chapman (18 Apr 1936)

Courage is more exhilerating than fear, and in the long run it’s easier.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Letter to Joseph Lash (13 Feb. 1946)

I think that if the atomic bomb did nothing more, it scared the people to the point where they realized that either they must do something about preventing war or there is a chance that there may be a morning when we would not wake up.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
News Conference (3 Jan 1946)

The test of democracy and civilization is to treat with fairness the individual’s right to self-expression, even when you can neither understand nor approve of it.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Radio address (14 Oct 1941)

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.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Radio broadcast, Voice of America (11 Nov 1951)

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 map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. 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. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Remarks on “In Your Hands” booklet, United Nations Commission on Human Rights, New York (27 Mar 1958)

I believe that you must apply to all groups the right to all forms of thought, to all forms of expression.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Speech, Chicago Civil Liberties Committee (1940)

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.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
Voice of America broadcast (11 Nov 1951)

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
You Learn by Living (1960)