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Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

Former First Lady of the United States

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Famous Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

“We can no longer oversimplify. We can no longer build lazy and false stereotypes: Americans are like this, Russians are like that, a Jew behaves in such a way, a Negro thinks in a different way. The lazy generalities - 'You know how women are ... Isn't that just like a man?' The world cannot be understood from a single point of view.”

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Book:What I Hope to Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of 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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Book:Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day: First lady of the world, her acclaimed columns, 1953-1962
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“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.”

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Author:Eleanor Roosevelt
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“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.”

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Book:Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt
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“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”

PeopleKnowsLoveLifeGivingPainLife IsLove IsInspiringFireLove YouMerePregnancyInspirational LoveShellsShrinksBeing In LoveBeing LovedLove Is LikeLike LoveThings I LoveThose We LoveBeen In LoveInspiring LoveLove Is All You NeedFree LovePurifyingCourage To LoveLight Of LoveClamsLove And CourageYou Know I Love YouPurifying Fire
Book:My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt's Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962
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“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.”

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Author:Eleanor Roosevelt
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“Our children should learn the general framework of their government and then they should know where they come in contact with the government, where it touches their daily lives and where their influence is exerted on the government. It must not be a distant thing, someone else's business, but they must see how every cog in the wheel of a democracy is important and bears its share of responsibility for the smooth running of the entire machine.”

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Author:Eleanor Roosevelt
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“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know.”

KnowsLoveInspirationalPainLove IsFireInspirational LoveBeing In LoveBeing LovedThose We LoveBeen In LoveInspiring LoveFree LovePurifyingCourage To LoveLight Of LoveClamsLove And CourageYou Know I Love YouPurifying Fire
Book:My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt's Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962
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“All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another's failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves. If at the end one can say, This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him; he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task, then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.”

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Book:Autobiography
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“Smearing good people like Lauchlin Currie [former administrative assistant to President Roosevelt], Alger Hiss and others is, I think, unforgiveable... Anyone knowing Mr. Currie or Mr. Hiss, who are the two people whom I happen to know fairly well, would not need any denial on their part to know they are not Communists. Their records prove it.”

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Author:Eleanor Roosevelt
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