Eleanor Roosevelt
(1884-1962)

First Lady of the United States
Chair of UN Commision on Human Rights
"First Lady of the World"
National Women's Hall of Fame
Gandhi Peace Award Winner
1954 Nansen Refugee Award

birthdate: October 11
birthplace:
New York City

QUOTES

Children
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world ... Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.

Culture Of Peace
On the whole our armed services have been doing pretty well in the way of keeping us defended, but I hope our State Department will remember that it is really the department of achieving peace.

Dialogue
We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.

Ecology
...conservation of land and conservation of people frequently go hand in hand.

Forgiveness
“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”

Freedom
"At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want… for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war."

Friendship
Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

"Before we can make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. "'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'" -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness
Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: "A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others."

Hope
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Human Rights
Basically we could not have peace, or an atmosphere in which peace could grow, unless we recognized the rights of individual human beings... their importance, their dignity... and agreed that was the basic thing that had to be accepted throughout the world. 

Labor
You in the unions do not yet represent all of labor. But I hope some day you will, because I believe that it is through strength, through the fact that people who know what people need are working to make this country a better place for all people, that we will help the world to accept our leadership and understand that, under our form of government and through our way of life, we have something to offer them…

I have always felt that it was important that everyone who was a worker join a labor organization.

I believe you should tell the story of injustices, of inequalities, of bad conditions, so that the people as a whole in this country really face the problems that people who are pushed to the point of striking know all about, but others know practically nothing about.

The labor movement has a great role to play in our country today.

Nothing To Fear
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face…You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Peace
The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Christ, some of the other great Jewish teachers, Buddha, all preached it. Their followers forgot it.

"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."

Simplicity
A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Do without

Tolerance
when we allow one group of people to look down upon another, then we may for a short time bring hardship on some particular group of people, but the real hardship and the real wrong is done to democracy and to our nation as a whole. We are then breeding people who cannot live under a democratic form of government but must be controlled by force. We have but to look out into the world to see how easy it is to become stultified, to accept without protest wrongs done to others, and to shift the burden of decision and responsibility for any action onto some vague thing called a government or some individual called a leader.

MORE QUOTES

"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few"

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

 

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