The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well lived.
Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.
Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.
Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
I have never felt that anything really mattered but knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.
Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.
Once I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: “No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.
The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
You can not live at all if you do not learn to adapt yourself to your life as it happens to be.
You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.
There is a growing wave in this country of fear, and of intolerance which springs from fear. Sometimes it is a religious intolerance, sometimes it is a racial intolerance, but all intolerance grows from the same roots.
No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.
Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?
Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.
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 his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
You can’t move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn’t mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.
To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
Good leaders inspire people to have confidence in their leader. Great leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves.
It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart
You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.
What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?
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.
We have to make these young people (of the Depression) feel that they are necessary. (They should be given) “certain things for which youth craves – the chance for self-sacrifice for an ideal.
You not only have a right to be an individual. You have a responsibility.
Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.
If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.
Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person’s stature is as large as one’s own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.
If you want a world ruled by law and not by force you must build up, from the very grassroots, a respect for law.
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.
To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.
It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.
Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one’s world.
…no one can afford not to be a man. No position can compensate for coming face to face with a robot when you are alone.
Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?
It is often the people who refuse to assume any responsibility who are apt to be the sharpest critics of those who do.
…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.
Don’t call a woman a bitch. Call her an ass-hole. It still gets your point across and it’s not sexist.
Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.
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.
Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.
Every time you meet a situation though you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the torture of the damned once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.
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!’
Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.
When you have decided what you believe what you feel must be done have the courage to stand alone and be counted.
I could not at any age be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never for whatever reason turn his back on life.
Somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.
Do not be afraid of mistakes providing you do not make the same one twice.
Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else.
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 at it.
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.
When you cease to make a contribution you begin to die.
Life has got to be lived-that’s all that there is to it.
When you cease to make a contribution you begin to die.
The trouble is that not enough people have come together with the firm determination to live the things which they say they believe.
When you get to the end of your rope tie a knot in it and hang on.
You always admire what you really don’t understand.
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.
This I know. This I believe with all my heart. 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!
This I know. This I believe with all my heart. 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!
You can’t move so fast that you try to change [a situation] faster than people can accept it. That doesn’t mean you do nothing but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.
No one from the beginning of time has had security.
Somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual you have an obligation to be one.
Criticism … makes very little dent upon me unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.
I think somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.
Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else.
I’m glad I never feel important it does complicate life.
More people are ruined by victory I imagine than by defeat.
Somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.
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.
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.
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 experiences behind him.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.
I think at a child’s birth if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift that gift should be curiosity.
I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.
My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.
Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.
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.’
Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.
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.
A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.
Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.
One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
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.
I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.
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.
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.
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.
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
Great minds discuss ideas average minds discuss events small minds discuss people.
I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.
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.
Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
Campaign behavior for wives: Always be on time. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Lean back in the parade car so everybody can see the president.
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.
If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.
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.
Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.