Best Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes To Inspire Greatness And Wisdom

One of the best Eleanor Roosevelt quotes is “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. Here’s over 100 other quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Most Inspiring Quotes

Eleanor Roosevelt was an American politician and diplomat who was the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was also a published author and spoke out on many political issues both during and after her time as First Lady.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable woman, whose wisdom transcends time. She was an advocate for human rights, and her quotes continue to inspire people around the world.

Here are some of our favorite Eleanor Roosevelt quotes:

Quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt

Understanding is a two-way street.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Anger is one letter short of danger.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Anger is one letter short of danger. - Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. Love thy neighbor as thyself.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Do one thing every day that scares you.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Since everybody is an individual, nobody can be you. You are unique. No one can tell you how to use your time. It is yours. Your life is your own. You mold it. You make it.

– 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


You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Related:150 + Inspiring Quotes About Change To Help You Grow As A Person


Choose a challenge instead of competence.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Your life is your own. You mold it. You make it. All anyone can do is to point out ways and means which have been helpful to others. Perhaps they will serve as suggestions to stimulate your own thinking until you know what it is that will fulfill you, will help you to find out what you want to do with your life.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Eleanor Roosevelt Famous Quotes

What one has to do usually can be done.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Be confident, not certain.

– 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


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


I lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Think as little as possible about yourself and as much as possible about other people.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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


Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Work is always an antidote to depression.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Work is always an antidote to depression. - Eleanor Roosevelt


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


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Best Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

Comparison is the thief of joy.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Comparison is the thief of joy. - Eleanor Roosevelt


It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Related: Life’s Too Short Quotes


I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt

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


Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


One must never, for any reason, turn his back on life.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Related: Beauty Quotes

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


Every time you meet a situation you think at the time it is an 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


We face the future fortified with the lessons we have learned from the past. It is today that we must create the world of the future.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Strength that goes wrong is even more dangerous than weakness that goes wrong.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing, we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, `It can’t be done.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. - Eleanor Roosevelt


Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality. - Eleanor Roosevelt


Famous Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


All of life is a constant education.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

All of life is a constant education. - Eleanor Roosevelt


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 his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Before we can make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves.

– 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

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful. - Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Life is like a parachute jump, you’ve got to get it right the first time.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Life is like a parachute jump, you’ve got to get it right the first time. - 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


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.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

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. - Eleanor Roosevelt


Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both. - Eleanor Roosevelt


The very next thing you need to be doing is the thing that terrifies you the most.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Eleanor Roosevelt Inspirational Quotes

Courage is exhilarating.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– 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


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


Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again. - Eleanor Roosevelt


The future is literally in our hands to mold as we like. But we cannot wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is now.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


The purpose of life is to live it, to taste the experience to the utmost.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


You must do the things you think you cannot do.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

You must do the things you think you cannot do. - Eleanor Roosevelt


The mind must be trained, rather than the memory.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don’t be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren’t paying attention to you.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. - Eleanor Roosevelt


Quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt

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


We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Curiosity must be kept alive.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Curiosity must be kept alive. - Eleanor Roosevelt


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


A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one’s world.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be. - Eleanor Roosevelt


There are practical little things in housekeeping which no man really understands.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that fits all cases.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run, it is easier.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Your ambition should be to get as much life out of living as you possibly can, as much enjoyment, as much interest, as much experience, as much understanding. Not simply be what is generally called a ‘success.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Life has got to be lived – that’s all there is to it. At seventy, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that ‘this, too, shall pass!

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Enjoy every minute you have with those you love, my dear, for no one can take joy that is past away from you. It will be there in your heart to live on when the dark days come.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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

– Eleanor Roosevelt


I never waste time looking back.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

I never waste time looking back. - Eleanor Roosevelt


Eleanor Roosevelt Quote Collection

A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


The giving of love is an education in itself.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

The giving of love is an education in itself. - Eleanor Roosevelt


No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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


It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a real sense, by the time we are adults, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

– 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


A great deal of fear is a result of just not knowing. We do not know what is involved in a new situation. We do not know whether we can deal with it. The sooner we learn what it entails, the sooner we can dissolve our fear.

– Eleanor Roosevelt


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


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


It seems to me of great importance to teach children respect for life.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

It seems to me of great importance to teach children respect for life. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Recent Posts



Most Quoted is the home of sayings, words of wisdom and quotes from the most quoted philosophers, writers, artists and thinkers. In addition to this collection of Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes, you will find hundreds of other quotes lists and collections on this site.