Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Rooseveltwas an American politician, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, having held the post from March 1933 to April 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, and served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitical Wife
Date of Birth11 October 1884
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president's wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.
For 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 for it.
I never thought of achievement. I just did what came along for me to do - the thing that gave me the most pleasure.
As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had something to do--I just did it.
Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.
What one has to do usually can be done.
My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.
What is to give light must endure the burning.
So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.
Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else's life, not even your own child's.
A trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree that we do -- namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions.
Do what you feel in your heart to be right. You'll be criticized anyway.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.
It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.