Eleanor Roosevelt

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

When you know to laugh and when to look upon things as too absurd to take seriously, the other person is ashamed to carry through even if he was serious about it.

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

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

All of life is a constant education.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.

Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment.

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.

The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.

All mankind love a lover.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and bad.

Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

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

When you’re first figuring yourself out, you care so much about what people think of you.