Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

Only the people can build world history.

The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

Men must make their history themselves through their own actions

Public policies in our democracy are eventually a reflection of public opinion," so public opinion must be reshaped if we are to avoid disaster.

My countrymen, the currents of destiny flow through the hearts of the people. Who will check them ? Who will divert them? Who will stop them?

I am the people — the mob — the crowd — the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

It is in the power of every individual to do that which the community as a whole is powerless to effect.

The power of the people and the power of reason are one.

A lot of my work concerns a crisis of agency - what can we do?

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

If enough people openly engage in conduct once considered reprehensible, we rewrite the rule book and assume that God, as a good democrat, will go along.

In the end, human history is made up of all our decisions.

Some people have much more pull than other people. But when I say that the public has ultimate responsibility, I'm not saying it in a moral sense. I'm just saying it in the sense of what is it that's really going to bring change.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

I really believe in the power of the individual to make change, and our family is a real collection of individuals.

I believe that we must maintain pride in the knowledge that the actions we take, based on our own decisions and choices as individuals, link directly to the magnificent challenge of transforming human history.

History is merciless. History doesn't care if we pound our society down a rat hole. It's up to us to make more intelligent choices about how we live!

In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it.

One thing I've learned over these last 30 or 40 years is that people make history. There's no fait accompli to any of this.

The power to shape Oregon's future remains where it has always been - in our collective hands.

We identify in our exerience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties.

Men are not yet ready to shape their own destinies, to control and direct world events, of which -- instead -- they become the victims.