In the 1940s, Roosevelt was one of the co-founders of Freedom House and supported the formation of the United Nations. Roosevelt founded the UN Association of the United States in 1943 to advance support for the formation of the UN. She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 and 1952, a job for which she was appointed by President Harry S. Truman and confirmed by the United States Senate. During her time at the United Nations she chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Truman called her the “First Lady of the World” in tribute to her human rights achievements.

1. Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

2. Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

6. Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.

7. 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.

8. I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

9. If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

10. 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.

11. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

12. It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

13. 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.

14. A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

15. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

16. Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

17. 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.

18. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

19. 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.

20. You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

21. 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.’

22. We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

23. The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.

24. We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.

25. A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

26. 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.

27. As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

28. Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

29. I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

30. I’m so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life!

31. Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

32. Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

33. People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

34. 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.

35. Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, But beautiful old people are works of art.