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I Received A Most Amusing Postcard The Other Morning. Unfortunately, It Was Not Signed In A Readable Manner So I Cannot Answer It Privately. But It Comes From Moblie, Ala., And Says: 'dear Mrs. Roosevelt: You Have Not Answered My Question, The Amount Of Negro Blood You Have In Your Veins, If Any.' I Am Afraid None Of Us Know How Much Nor What Kind Of Blood We Have In Our Veins, Since Chemically It Is All The Same. And Most Of Us Cannot Trace Our Ancestry More Than A Few Generations.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

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I Received A Most

Eleanor Roosevelt

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I Received A Most Amusing Postcard The Other Morning. Unfortunately, It Was Not Signed In A Readable Manner So I Cannot Answer It Privately. But It Comes From Moblie, Ala., And Says: 'dear Mrs. Roosevelt: You Have Not Answered My Question, The Amount Of Negro Blood You Have In Your Veins, If Any.' I Am Afraid None Of Us Know How Much Nor What Kind Of Blood We Have In Our Veins, Since Chemically It Is All The Same. And Most Of Us Cannot Trace Our Ancestry More Than A Few Generations.

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More From Eleanor Roosevelt

We Must Want For Others, Not Ourselves Alone.

You Can't Move So Fast That You Try To Change The Mores Faster Than People Can Accept It.

When You Adopt The Standards And The Values Of Someone Else … You Surrender Your Own Integrity. You Become, To The Extent Of Your Surrender, Less Of A Human Being.

The Choices We Make Are Ultimately Our Responsibility.

Personal Accountability

Happiness Is Not A Goal; It Is A By-product.

We Gain Strength, And Courage, And Confidence By Each Experience In Which We Really Stop To Look Fear In The Face... We Must Do That Which We Think We Cannot.

I Believe That It Is Essential To Our Leadership In The World And To The Development Of True Democracy In Our Country To Have No Discrimination In Our Country Whatsoever. This Is Most Important In The Schools Of Our Country.

Terrific Minds Focus On Tips; Average Minds Go Over Activities; Little Minds Talk About People Today.

To Undo A Mistake Is Always Harder Than Not To Create One Originally But We Seldom Have The Foresight. Therefore We Have No Choice But To Try To Correct Our Past Mistakes.

One Should Always Sleep In All Of One's Guest Beds, To Make Sure That They Are Comfortable.

If You Believe That A Nation Is Really Better Off Which Achieves For A Comparative Few, Those Who Are Capable Of Attaining It, High Culture, Ease, Opportunity, And That These Few From Their Enlightenment Should Give What They Consider Best To Those Less Favored, Then You Naturally Belong To The Republican Party. But If You Believe That People Must Struggle Slowly To The Light For Themselves, Then It Seems To Me That You Are A Democrat.

In The Long Run There Is No More Exhilarating Experience Than To Determine One's Position, State It Bravely And Then Act Boldly.

You Should Always Own A Black Dress Because No One Ever Remembers A Black Dress.

The Film Industry Is A Great Industry, With Infinite Possibilities For Good And Bad. Its Primary Purpose Is To Entertain People. On The Side, It Can Do Many Other Things. It Can Popularize Certain Ideals, It Can Make Education Palatable. But In The Long Run, The Judge Who Decides Whether What It Does Is Good Or Bad Is The Man Or Woman Who Attends The Movies.

We Are Afraid To Care Too Much, For Fear That The Other Person Does Not Care At All.

I'm Enormously Interested In Freedom And Retaining The Right To Have Whatever Economy We Want And To Shape It As We Want And A Having Sufficient Democracy So That The People Actually Hold Their Government In Their Own Hands.

You Rarely Achieve Finality. If You Did, Life Would Be Over, But As You Strive New Visions Open Before You, New Possibilities For The Satisfaction Of Living.

No Human Being Can Ever "own" Another, Whether In Friendship, Love, Marriage Or Parenthood. Many Human Relationships Have Been Ruined And Happiness Far Too Often Changed To Misery By A Failure To Understand This.

Friendship Love

The Will Of The People Shall Be The Basis Of The Authority Of Government.

We Have Come To Accept Bigger And Bigger Things As Meaning Greater And Greater Efficiency, More And More Prosperity And More And More Freedom. The Two Do Not Go Together Of Necessity.

There Is A Desire For Progress In The Hearts Of All Men, And It Is The Sense Of Frustration And Inability To Move Forward That Brings Violent Revolution.

No Leader Can Be Too Far Ahead Of His Followers.

Since Everybody Is An Individual, Nobody Can Be You. You Are Unique. No One Can Tell You How To Use Your Time. It Is Yours. Your Life Is Your Own. You Mold It. You Make It.

Every Woman In Public Life Needs To Develop Skin As Tough As Rhinoceros Hide.

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.

Happiness Is Not A Goal, It Is A By-product. Paradoxically, The One Sure Way Not To Be Happy Is Deliberately To Map Out A Way Of Life In Which One Would Please Oneself Completely And Exclusively.

I Have A Great Belief In Spiritual Force, But I Think We Have To Realize That Spiritual Force Alone Has To Have Material Force With It So Long As We Live In A Material World. The Two Together Make A Strong Combination.

You [future First Ladies] Will Feel That You Are No Longer Clothing Yourself, You Are Dressing A Public Monument.

Think As Little As Possible About Yourself And As Much As Possible About Other People.

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.

You Must Do The Things You Think You Cannot Do.

To A Certain Extent I Don't See Any Real Need For Socialism In The United States Immediately, But Things Change And It May Be That There Will Come A Need For Partial Changes In Our Economy.

If Human Beings Can Be Trained For Cruelty And Greed And A Belief In Power Which Comes Through Hate And Fear And Force, Certainly We Can Train Equally Well For Greatness And Mercy And The Power Of Love Which Comes Because Of The Strength Of The Good Qualities To Be Found In The Soul Of Every Human Being.

Ability Is Not Something To Be Saved, Like Money, In The Hope That You Can Draw Interest On It. The Interest Comes From The Spending. Unused Ability, Like Unused Muscles, Will Atrophy. It Is Tragic To Realize That The Majority Of Human Beings, Even The So-called Educated, Call Upon Only The Smallest Fraction Of Their Potential Capacity. They Leave Many Talents Dormant. They Fail To Develop Their Mental Qualities. They Are Almost Unaware Of The Degree Of Energy Upon Which They Might Call To Build A Full And Rewarding Life.

I Carried It (a Revolver) Religiously And During The Summer I Asked A Friend, A Man Who Had Been One Of Franklin's Bodyguards In New York State, To Give Me Some Practice In Target Shooting So That If The Need Arose I Would Know How To Use The Gun.

Government Exists For One Purpose: To Make Things Better For All People.

The Marines I Have Seen Around The World Have The Cleanest Bodies, The Filthiest Minds, The Highest Morale, And The Lowest Morals Of Any Group Of Animals I Have Ever Seen. Thank God For The United States Marine Corps!

If You Have To Compromise, Be Sure To Compromise Up.

If You Prepare Yourself At Every Point As Well As You Can, With Whatever Means You May Have, However Meager They May Seem, You Will Be Able To Grasp Opportunity For Broader Experience When It Appears. Without Preparation You Cannot Do It.

The Encouraging Thing Is That Every Time You Meet A Situation, Though You May Think At The Time It Is An Impossibility And You Go Through The Tortures Of The Damned, Once You Have Met It And Lived Through It You Find That Forever After You Are Freer Than You Ever Were Before. . . . You Gain Strength, Courage, And Confidence By Every Experience In 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.

We Stand Today At The Threshold Of A Great Event Both In The Life Of The United Nations And In The Life Of Mankind. This Declaration May Well Become The International Magna Carta For All Men Everywhere. We Hope Its Proclamation By The General Assembly Will Be An Event Comparable To The Proclamation In 1789 [of The French Declaration Of The Rights Of Man], The Adoption Of The Bill Of Rights By The People Of The U.s., And The Adoption Of Comparable Declarations At Different Times In Other Countries.

I Know That Given Great Responsibility Men Sometimes Change, But Mr. Nixon's Presidency Would Worry Me.

Strength That Goes Wrong Is Even More Dangerous Than Weakness That Goes Wrong.

It Is Always Easier To Do Nothing Than To Try A New Line Of Action.

Home-making Today Should Have A Background Of Scientific Training Because Only In This Way Can Real Efficiency Be Achieved. The Average Girl Wants To Be Able To Keep Her House With The Least Possible Strain, And In Order To Do This She Must Have Good Training. This Can Best Be Achieved By Taking A Good Course In Home Economics.

... Many Of The Things Which We Deplore, The Prevalence Of Tuberculosis, The Mounting Record Of Crime In Certain Sections Of The Country, Are Not Due Just To Lack Of Education And To Physical Differences, But Are Due In Great Part To The Basic Fact Of Segregation Which We Have Set Up In This Country And Which Warps And Twists The Lives Not Only Of Our Negro Population, But Sometimes Of Foreign Born Or Even Of Religious Groups.

The World Conspires To Help Those Who Are In Love With The Beauty Of Their Dreams.

Never Be Bored, And You Will Never Be Boring.

It Is Better To Light A Candle Than Curse The Darkness.

We Women Are Callow Fledglings As Compared With The Wise Old Birds Who Manipulate The Political Machinery, And We Still Hesitate To Believe That A Woman Can Fill Certain Positions In Public Life As Competently And Adequately As A Man. For Instance, It Is Certain That Women Do Not Want A Woman For President. Nor Would They Have The Slightest Confidence In Her Ability To Fulfill The Functions Of That Office. Every Woman Who Fails In A Public Position Confirms This, But Every Woman Who Succeeds Creates Confidence.

The Purpose Of Life Afterall Is To Live It.

Purpose Of Life

Do Not Be Afraid Of Mistakes, Provided You Do Not Make The Same One Twice.

To Me Who Dreamed So Much As A Child, Who Made A Dreamworld In Which I Was The Heroine Of An Unending Story, The Lives Of People Around Me Continued To Have A Certain Storybook Quality. I Learned Something Which Has Stood Me In Good Stead Many Times - The Most Important Thing In Any Relationship Is Not What You Get But What You Give.

You Wouldn't Worry So Much About What Others Think Of You If You Realized How Seldom They Do.

Some People Are Going To Leave A Mark On This World, While Others Will Leave A Stain.

... Any Citizen Should Be Willing To Give All That He Has To Give His Country In Work Or Sacrifice In Times Of Crisis.

No One Can Move Without Some Leadership.

Up To A Certain Point It Is Good For Us To Know That There Are People In The World Who Will Give Us Love And Unquestioned Loyalty To The Limit Of Their Ability. I Doubt, However, If It Is Good For Us To Feel Assured Of This Without The Accompanying Obligation Of Having To Justify This Devotion By Our Behavior.

It Has Been A Long Fight To Put The Control Of Our Economic System In The Hands Of The Government.

The Freedom Of Man, I Contend, Is The Freedom To Eat.

All Wars Eventually Act As Boomerangs And The Victor Suffers As Much As The Vanquished.

Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People.

I Don't Know Much About Capitalism, But I Do Know About Democracy And Freedom, And If Capitalism May Change In Many, Many Ways, I'm Not Really Very Much Interested In Capitalism.

It Is Equality Of Monotony Which Makes The Strength Of The British Isles.

How Can We Be Such Fools As To Go On Senselessly Taking Human Life In This Way? Why The Women In Every Nation Do Not Rise Up And Refuse To Bring Children Into A World Of This Kind Is Beyond My Understanding.

Friendship With Oneself Is All Important.

When You Are Genuinely Interested In One Thing, It Will Always Lead To Something Else.

This Is Not A Time When Women Should Be Patient. We Are In A War And We Need To Fight It With All Our Ability And Every Weapon Possible. Women Pilots, In This Particular Case, Are A Weapon Waiting To Be Used.

The Important Thing Is Neither Your Nationality Nor The Religion You Professed, But How Your Faith Translated Itself In Your Life.

Important Things

...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 And Destructive Effect Upon Society Than The Others.

Somewhere Along The Line Of Development We Discover What We Really Are And Then Make Our Real Decision For Which We Are Responsible. Make That Decision Primarily For Yourself Because You Can Never Really Live Anyone Else's Lie, Not Even Your Child's. The Influence You Exert Is Through Your Own Life And What You Become Yourself.

What Counts, In The Long Run, Is Not What You Read; It Is What You Sift Through Your Own Mind; It Is The Ideas And Impressions That Are Aroused In You By Your Reading. It Is The Ideas Stirred In Your Own Mind, The Ideas Which Are A Reflection Of Your Own Thinking, Which Make You An Interesting Person

If We Want A Free And Peaceful World, If We Want To Make The Deserts Bloom And Man Grow To Greater Dignity As A Human Being - We Can Do It.

Get Out Of The Way As Quickly As You're Not Needed.

I Think That Somehow, We Learn Who We Really Are And Then Live With That Decision.

You Always Admire What You Really Don't Understand. - Eleanor Roosevelt

We Need Not Fear Any Isms If Our Democracy Is Achieving The Ends For Which It Was Established.

We Have Reached A Point Today Where Labor-saving Devices Are Good Only When They Do Not Throw The Worker Out Of His Job.

The Fundamental Right Of Freedom Of Thought And Expression Is Essential. If You Curtail What The Other Fellow Says And Does, You Curtail What You Yourself May Say And Do.

Success Must Include Two Things: The Development Of An Individual To His Utmost Potentiality And A Contribution Of Some Kind To One's World.

It Is Not Fair To Ask Of Others What You Are Not Willing To Do Yourself.

I Have Always Felt That It Was Important That Everyone Who Was A Worker Join A Labor Organization.

It Seems To Me That I Cannot Afford, As A Self-respecting Individual, To Refuse To Do A Thing Merely Because It Will Make Me Disliked Or Bring Down A Storm Of Criticism On My Head.

Before We Can Make Friends With Anyone Else, We Must First Make Friends With Ourselves.

Courage Is Exhilarating.

The Very Next Thing You Need To Be Doing Is The Thing That Terrifies You The Most.

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. Yet They Are The World Of The Individual Person...withou T Concerted Citizen Action To Uphold Them Close To Home, We Shall Look In Vain For Progress In The Larger World.

We All Create The Person We Become By Our Choices As We Go Through Life. In A Real Sense, By The Time We Are Adults, We Are The Sum Total Of The Choices We Have Made.

Organize First For Knowledge, First With The Object Of Making Us Know Ourselves As A Nation, For We Have To Do That Before We Canbe Of Value To Other Nations Of The World And Then Organize To Accomplish The Things That You Decide To Want. Anddon't Make Decisions With The Interest Of Youth Alone Before You. Make Your Decisions Because They Are Good For The Nation As A Whole.

You Never Know Anyone Until You Marry Them.

Do One Thing Everyday That Scares You. Those Small Things That Make Us Uncomfortable Help Us Build Courage To Do The Work We Do.

For Instance, It Is Certain That Women Do Not Want A Woman For President. Nor Would They Have The Slightest Confidence In Her Ability To Fulfill The Functions Of That Office.

I Wonder If One Of The Penalties Of Growing Older Is That You Become More And More Conscious That Nothing Is Very Permanent.

I Received A Most Amusing Postcard The Other Morning. Unfortunately, It Was Not Signed In A Readable Manner So I Cannot Answer It Privately. But It Comes From Moblie, Ala., And Says: 'dear Mrs. Roosevelt: You Have Not Answered My Question, The Amount Of Negro Blood You Have In Your Veins, If Any.' I Am Afraid None Of Us Know How Much Nor What Kind Of Blood We Have In Our Veins, Since Chemically It Is All The Same. And Most Of Us Cannot Trace Our Ancestry More Than A Few Generations.

We Must Do What We Think We Can't Do.

A Guest Is Really Good Or Bad Because Of The Host Or Hostess Who Makes Being A Guest An Easy Or A Difficult Task.

If Man Is To Be Liberated To Enjoy More Leisure, He Must Also Be Prepared To Enjoy This Leisure Fully And Creatively.

No Human Being Can Ever 'own' Another, Whether In Friendship, Love, Marriage, Or Parenthood.

Friendship Love

Feelings, Too, Are Facts. Emotion Is A Fact. Human Experience Is A Fact. It Is Often Possible To Gain More Real Insight Into Human Beings And Their Motivation By Reading Great Fiction Than By Personal Acquaintance.

It's Your Life - But Only If You Make It So. The Standards By Which You Live Must Be Your Own Standards, Your Own Values, Your Own Convictions In Regard To What Is Right And Wrong, What Is True And False, What Is Important And What Is Trivial. When You Adopt The Standards And The Values Of Someone Else . . . You Surrender Your Own Integrity. You Become, To The Extent Of Your Surrender, Less Of A Human Being.

Women Are Like Teabags. We Don't Know Our True Strength Until We Are In Hot Water!

Since You Get More Joy Out Of Giving Joy To Others, You Should Put A Good Deal Of Thought Into The Happiness That You Are Able To Give.

Of Course, I Do Not Believe In Having Everyone Who Is A Liberal Called A Communist, Or Everyone Who Is Conservative Called A Fascist.

I Consider Those Are Rich Who Are Doing Something They Feel Worthwhile And Which They Enjoy Doing.

If You Must Compromise, Compromise Up.

The Term 'young Adults' Which Is So Often Used Today Seems To Me A Misnomer, And One Which, If Taken Seriously, May Lead The Adolescent Into Misunderstanding As To His Nature And His Role In Life. 'young" He Is; 'adult' He Is Not.

In All Our Contacts It Is Probably The Sense Of Being Really Needed And Wanted Which Gives Us The Greatest Satisfaction And Creates The Most Lasting Bond.

...no Matter How Avid They Themselves May Be For Praise And Appreciation, People Are Often Niggardly In Giving It To Others, However Merited It Is.

Freedom Makes A Huge Requirement Of Every Human Being. With Freedom Comes Responsibility. For The Person Who Is Unwilling To Grow Up, The Person Who Does Not Want To Carry Is Own Weight, This Is A Frightening Prospect.

When Life Is Too Easy For Us, We Must Beware Or We May Not Be Ready To Meet The Blows Which Sooner Or Later Come To Everyone, Rich Or Poor.

Do What You Feel In Your Heart To Be Right - For You'll Be Criticized Anyway. You'll Be Damned If You Do, And Damned If You Don't.

As For Accomplishments, I Just Did What I Had To Do As Things Came Along.

I Believe That Anyone Can Conquer Fear By Doing The Things He Fears To Do.

You Gain Strength, Courage, And Confidence By Every Experience In Which You Really Stop To Look Fear In The Face.... The Danger Lies In Refusing To Face The Fear, In Not Daring To Come To Grips With It. If You Fail Anywhere Along The Line It Will Take Away Your Confidence. You Must Make Yourself Succeed Every Time. You Must Do The Thing You Think You Cannot Do.

Hate And Force Cannot Be In Just A Part Of The World Without Having An Effect On The Rest Of It.

I Think The Thing We Must Look For Actually Is A Growth In Our People And In Whoever Comes In A Quality Of Courage To Tell Our People Just What World Conditions Are.

Anyone Who Has Gone Through Great Suffering Is Bound To Have A Greater Sympathy And Understanding Of The Problems Of Mankind.

I'm So Glad I Never Feel Important, It Does Complicate Life!

The Future Belongs To Those Who Believe In The Beauty Of Their Dreams.

Practically Nothing We Do Ever Stands By Itself. If It Is Good, It Will Serve Some Good Purpose In The Future. If It Is Evil, It May Haunt Us And Handicap Our Efforts In Unimagined Ways.

To Be A Citizen In A Democracy, A Human Being Must Be Given A Healthy Start.

Be Confident, Not Certain

There Is A Widespread Understanding Among The People Of This Nation, And Probably Among The People Of The World, That There Is No Safety Except Through The Prevention Of War.

You Get Strength And Courage, When You Stop To Look Fear In The Face.

When It's Better For Everyone, It's Better For Everyone.

One Of The Best Ways Of Enslaving A People Is To Keep Them From Education.

It Is Impossible To Be A Cynic If You Live A Good Deal With Young People. Fundamentally, Every Young Person Has A Feeling That The Future Is Going To Hold Something Of Value.

If You Can Develop This Ability To See What You Look At, To Understand Its Meaning, To Readjust Your Knowledge To This New Information, You Can Continue To Learn And To Grow As Long As You Live And You’ll Have A Wonderful Time Doing It.

All Of Life Is A Constant Education.

It Is Today That We Create The World Of The Future.

Probably The Happiest Period In Life Most Frequently Is In Middle Age, When The Eager Passions Of Youth Are Cooled, And The Infirmities Of Age Not Yet Begun; As We See That The Shadows, Which Are At Morning And Evening So Large, Almost Entirely Disappear At Midday.

Comparison Is The Thief Of All Joy.

Some Friends Leave Footprints In Your Heart

Friends Come And Go

Each Time You Learn Something New You Must Readjust The Whole Framework Of Your Knowledge

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.

A Good Leader Inspires People To Have Confidence In The Leader, A Great Leader Inspires People To Have Confidence In Themselves.

I Have Spent Many Years Of My Life In Opposition, And I Rather Like The Role.

The Mind Must Be Trained, Rather Than The Memory.

Somehow We Must Be Able To Show People That Democracy Is Not About Words, But Action.

One's Philosophy Is Not Best Expressed In Words; It Is Expressed In The Choices One Makes. In Stopping To Think Through The Meaning Of What I Have Learned, There Is Much That I Believe Intensely, Much I Am Unsure Of. In The Long Run, We Shape Our Lives And We Shape Ourselves. The Process Never Ends Until We Die. And, The Choices We Make Are Ultimately Our Own Responsibility.

I Have Always Seen Life Personally; My Interest Or Sympathy Or Indignation Is Not Aroused By An Abstract Cause But By The Plight Of A Single Person...out Of My Response To An Individual Develops An Awareness Of A Problem To The Community, Then To The Country, Then To The World.

The Giving Of Love And Understanding Is An Education In Itself.

Only A Man's Character Is The Real Criterion Of Worth.

We Stand Today At The Threshold Of A Great Event Both In The Life Of The United Nations And In The Life Of Mankind, That Is The Approval By The General Assembly Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

I Believe That It Is A Great Mistake Not To Stand Up For People, Even When You Differ With Them, If You Feel That They Are Trying To Do Things That Will Help Our Country.

It Is A Curious Thing In Human Experience, But To Live Through A Period Of Stress And Sorrow With Another Person, Creates A Bond Which Nothing Seems Able To Break.

Those Who Attack Always Do So With Greater Fervor Than Those Who Defend.

I Do Not Want Church Groups Controlling The Schools Of Our Country. They Must Remain Free.

Most Women, I Think, Though They May Complain A Little About This, Would Agree That Meeting The Needs Of Others Is Not A Real Burden; It Is What Makes Life Worth Living. It Is Probably The Deepest Satisfaction A Woman Has.

We Are Given In Our Newspapers And On Tv And Radio Exactly What We, The Public, Insist On Having, And This Very Frequently Is Mediocre Information And Mediocre Entertainment.

The Basis Of World Peace Is The Teaching Which Runs Through Almost All The Great Religions Of The World. Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself.

Losing Money Is A Big Loss, Losing Friends Is Greater Than The Loss, Also Lost All Faith Is Lost

The Most Important Thing In Any Relationship Is Not What You Get But What You Give.... In Any Case, The Giving Of Love Is An Education In Itself.

Experience Should Teach Us That It Is Always The Unexpected That Does Occur.

To Handle Yourself, Use Your Head; To Handle Others, Use Your Heart. Anger Is Only One Letter Short Of Danger. If Someone Betrays You Once, It Is His Fault; If He Betrays You Twice, It Is Your Fault. Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People. He Who Loses Money, Loses Much; He Who Loses A Friend, Loses Much More; He Who Loses Faith, Loses All.

The Motivating Force Of The Theory Of A Democratic Way Of Life Is Still A Belief That As Individuals We Live Cooperatively, And, To The Best Of Our Ability, Serve The Community In Which We Live.

Great Leaders Inspire People To Have Confidence In Themselves.

If We Fail To Meet Our Problems Here, No One Else In The World Will Do So. If We Fail, The Heart Goes Out Of Progressives Throughout The World.

What We Must Learn To Do Is To Create Unbreakable Bonds Between The Sciences And The Humanities. We Cannot Procrastinate. The World Of The Future Is In Our Making. Tomorrow Is Now.

Unbreakable Bonds

All Of Us In This Country Give Lip Service To The Ideals Set Forth In The Bill Of Rights And Emphasized By Every Additional Amendment, And Yet When War Is Stirring In The World, Many Of Us Are Ready To Curtail Our Civil Liberties. We Do Not Stop To Think That Curtailing These Liberties May In The End Bring Us A Greater Danger Than The Danger We Are Trying To Avert.

We Must Do That Which We Think We Cannot.

The Leisure Class Is One In Which Individuals Have Sufficient Economic Security And Sufficient Leisure To Find Opportunity For A Variety Of Satisfactions In Life.

Satisfaction In Life

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.

Of Course Mahatma Gandhi You Might Say Did Not Have So Much Physical Vigor But He Certainly Seemed To Have Extraordinary Resistance, Which Perhaps Is Rather Different From Physical Vigor.

When Will Our Consciences Grow So Tender That We Will Act To Prevent Human Misery Rather Than Avenge It?

We Don't Become Heroes Overnight." - One Step At A Time, Eventually Discovering We Have The Strength To Stare It Down.

One Step At A Time

For Our Own Success To Be Real, It Must Contribute To The Success Of Others.

If Anyone Were To Ask Me What I Want Out Of Life I Would Say- The Opportunity For Doing Something Useful, For In No Other Way, I Am Convinced, Can True Happiness Be Attained.

We Must Know What We Think And Speak Out, Even At The Risk Of Unpopularity.

You Have To Accept Whatever Comes And The Only Important Thing Is That You Meet It With Courage And With The Best That You Have To Give.

Every Age Is An Unknown Country.

If You Have Any Interests You Can Gain A Wider Audience For Those Interests While The Goldfish Bowl Is Yours!

The Things You Refuse To Meet Today Always Come Back At You Later On, Usually Under Circumstances Which Make The Decision Twice As Difficult As It Originally Was.

Character Building Begins In Our Infancy And Continues Until Death.

Women Are Like Tea Bags: Put Them In Hot Water And They Get Stronger.

I Can't Tell You How To Succeed, But I Can Tell You How To Fail: Try To Please Everybody.

One Of The Best Ways Of Enslaving A People Is To Keep Them From Education... The Second Way Of Enslaving A People Is To Suppress The Sources Of Information, Not Only By Burning Books But By Controlling All The Other Ways In Which Ideas Are Transmitted.

The Constant Pressure To Bring About Conformity Is A Dangerous Thing.

I Believe That Anyone Can Conquer Fear By Doing The Things He Fears To Do, Provided He Keeps Doing Them Until He Gets A Record Of Successful Experience Behind Him.

...real Prosperity Can Only Come When Everybody Prospers.

We Need Emotional Outlets In This Country, And The More Artistic People We Develop The Better It Will Be For Us As A Nation.

I Wonder If Communists Occupied In Producing Plays Are Not Safer Than Communists Starving To Death. I Have Always Felt That Whatever Your Beliefs Might Be, If You Could Earn Enough To Keep Body And Soul Together And Had To Be Pretty Busy Doing That, You Would Not Be Very Apt To Have Time To Plot The Overthrow Of Any Existing Government.

Franklin's Illness...gave Him Strength And Courage He Had Not Had Before. He Had To Think Out The Fundamentals Of Living And Learn The Greatest Of All Lessons - Infinite Patience And Never Ending Persistence.

About The Only Value The Story Of My Life May Have Is To Show That One Can, Even Without Any Particular Gifts, Overcome Obstacles That Seem Insurmountable If One Is Willing To Face The Fact That They Must Be Overcome.

Do Something Everyday That Scares You.

It Seems To Me Of Great Importance To Teach Children Respect For Life.

I'm Intensely Anxious To Preserve The Freedom That Gives You The Right To Think And To Act And To Talk As You Please. That I Think Is Essential To Happiness And The Life Of The People.

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.

I Often Wonder How We Can Make The More Fortunate In This Country Fully Aware Of The Fact That The Problem Of The Unemployed Is Not A Mechanical One. It Is A Problem Alive And Throbbing With Human Pain.

Nothing Has Ever Been Achieved By The Person Who Says, ‘it Can’t Be Done.’

Justice Cannot Be For One Side Alone, But Must Be For Both.

Enjoy Every Minute You Have With Those You Love, My Dear, For No One Can Take Joy That Is Past Away From You. It Will Be There In Your Heart To Live On When The Dark Days Come.

Furnish An Example, Stop Preaching, Stop Shielding, Don't Prevent Self-reliance And Initiative, Allow Your Children To Develop Along Thier Own Lines.

This Living In A Democracy Is A Problem, Isn't It?

Life Has Got To Be Lived - That's All There Is To It. At Seventy, I Would Say The Advantage Is That You Take Life More Calmly. You Know That 'this, Too, Shall Pass!'

This Too Shall Pass

We Will Never Have Peace Without Friendship Around The World.

Around The World

I Am Convinced That Every Effort Must Be Made In Childhood To Teach The Young To Use Their Own Minds. For One Thing Is Sure: If They Don't Make Up Their Minds, Someone Will Do It For Them.

After The Discovery In 1918 Of Love Letters Revealing That Franklin Was Involved With Lucy Mercer: The Bottom Dropped Out Of My Own Particular World, I Faced Myself, My Surroundings, My World, Honestly For The First Time.

You Gain Strength, Courage, And Confidence By Doing The Thing Which You Think You Cannot Do.

The Word Liberal Comes From The Word Free. We Must Cherish And Honor The Word Free Or It Will Cease To Apply To Us.

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