Quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt

Anxiety," Kierkegaard said, "is the dizziness of freedom." This freedom of which men speak, for which they fight, seems to some people a perilous thing. It has to be earned at a bitter cost and then—it has to be lived with. For 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.

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

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.

Consider the truly happy people you know. I think it is unlikely that you will find that circumstances have made them happy. They have made themselves happy in spite of circumstances.

Discipline of mind and body is one of the most difficult things one has to acquire, but in the long run it is a valuable ingredient of education and a tremendous bulwark in time of trouble. Certainly, it is essential in meeting defeats and recovering from disaster. No matter how hard hit you are, you can face what has to be faced if you have learned to master your own fears.

Maturity means, too, an ability to take criticism and evaluate it. When it is not of value, when it is not constructive, but destructive, one can forget it. But when it is constructive one must accept it and try to profit, even though hurt by it. Perhaps you were hurt because a certain person pointed out a fault and you did not want that person to think you had a fault. But, if you are mature enough, you will accept the criticism of those you love and who love you and learn from it.

No relationship in this world ever remains warm and close unless a real effort is made on both sides to keep it so.

In a democratic society we must live cooperatively, and serve the community in which we live, to the best of our ability. For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.

Occasionally he took us on a picnic or a camping trip and taught us many valuable lessons. The chief one was to remember that camping was a good way to find out people's characters. Those who were selfish showed it very soon, in that they wanted the best bed or the best food and did not want to do their share of the work.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.

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The hard part of loving is that one has to learn so often to let go of those we love, so they can do things, so they can grow, so they can return to us with an even richer, deeper love.