Posts tagged “The Roosevelts”

Two great quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt, born on this date in 1884:

“A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.”

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (b) Jan 30, 1882

Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.
Theodore Roosevelt

I have been in a great quandary over trusts. I do not know what attitude to take. I do not intend to play a demagogue, but on the other hand, I do intend to see that the rich man is held to the same accountability as the poor man. And when the rich man is rich enough to buy unscrupulous advice from very able lawyers, this is not always easy.
Theodore Roosevelt
in an August 15, 1899 letter to a friend

We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately — but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes — but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.

I remember that my old schoolmaster, Dr. Peabody, said, in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled: “Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights — then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fourth Inaugural Address
Saturday, January 20, 1945

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt, April 23, 1910

[W]ith a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not serve righteousness; for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong.
Theodore Roosevelt – February 22, 1915