Eleanor Roosevelt

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

To be a citizen in a democracy, a human being must be given a healthy start.

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

If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.

I think I have a good deal of my Uncle Theodore in me, because I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.

All of life is a constant education.

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them understood. It too often happens in some conversations, as in Apothecary Shops, that those Pots that are Empty, or have Things of small Value in them, are as gaudily Dress’d as those that are full of precious Drugs. They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

In his private heart no man much respects himself.

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.