Eleanor Roosevelt

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

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

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

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.

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

Work is always an antidote to depression.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Republics abound in young civilians who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living and employments of the population, that commerce, education and religion may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; that the form of government which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.

The world is its own magic.

Broken, like a mosaic, I am pieced together. I am still a piece of art, though I may not be fully appreciated by all, the ones that see the beauty, are the ones who have the understanding; gained through experience, that to break, doesn’t mean to give up.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.

Life consists in what a person is thinking of all day.