“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.”

American political figure, diplomat, and activist

Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was best known as the longest-serving first lady of the United States, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four presidential terms from 1933 to 1945, and for the public role she shaped beyond the White House. After becoming widowed in 1945, she represented the United States at the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. She played a leading part in shaping the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in building support for it around the world. Her work was widely recognized in 1948, when the assembly gave her a standing ovation after adopting the declaration.