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.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

I could never be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

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

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

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

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Help a man against his will and you do the same as murder him.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.