Eleanor Roosevelt

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

“The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may 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 ever were before. If you can live through that, you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”

“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.”

“It seems to me that I cannot afford, as a self-respecting individual, to refuse to do a thing merely because it will make me disliked or bring down a storm of criticism on my head.”

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

“I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me 'understand' something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.”

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

“I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.”

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

“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.”

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

“A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.”

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

“This is your life, not someone else's. It is your own feeling of what is important, not what people will say. Sooner or later, you are bound to discover that you cannot please all of the people around you all of the time. Some of t hem will attribute to you motives you never dreamed of. Some of them will misinterpret your words and actions, making them completely alien to you. So you had better learn fairly early that you must not expect to have everyone understand what you say and what you do.”

“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.”

“A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”

“Once I 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.”

“The mother of a family should look upon her housekeeping and the planning of meals as a scientific occupation.”

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

“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 any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.”