Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

What can you possibly add to a mind that's full, especially one that's full of itself.

I'm very bright, but I'm terrified of sounding like someone who thinks he's very bright-because those people are assholes.

I'm not trying to be one of those guys that's bigger than everyone else in the weight class.

Now that I believe in God, I have an extra layer of saying I'll write about what I write about and assume that I'm being offered the opportunity to illuminate something important. But when you think you are too important, you become some sort of fascist.

We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.

Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true; but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.

Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.

I have seldom seen much ostentation and much learning met together.

Show me someone not full of herself and I'll show you a hungry person.

It is the small men and not the great who hold their noses in the air.

I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

Vanity is really the least bad and most pardonable sort. The vain person wants praise, applause, admiration too much and is always angling for it. It is a fault, but a childlike and even (in an odd way) a humble fault. It shows that you are not yet completely contented with your own admiration. You value other people enough to want them to look at you. You are in fact still human.

When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.

Most of those who spend their lives as critics secretly wish they'd be considered important enough for someone to bother criticizing them.

Unchecked pride evolves into swagger, a hypnotizing mask of insecurity that can and does compromise our ability to make progress and attain power. Pride stands in the way of forgiveness and a strategic approach to navigating a chessboard rigged to prevent pawns from becoming kings and queens.

One must never allow oneself to acquire an exaggerated sense of one's own importance. There's no necessity to burden oneself with absolutes

The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.

If there's anything worse than knowing too little, it's knowing too much. Education will broaden a narrow mind, but there's no known cure for a big head. The best you can hope is that it will swell up and bust.

Conceit is a privilege of the ignorant; the wise man is humble because he knows how little he knows.

Don't be threatened by people smarter than you.

To be vain of one's rank or place is to show that one is below it.

If you're anything like me there are days when you're convinced you know more than everyone around you. Which is often confirmed by your interactions with people.

I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world.

But everybody has exactly the same smiling frightened face, with the look that says: "I'm important. If you only get to know me, you will see how important I am. Look into my eyes. Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.

We learn nothing by being right.