You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

by Eleanor Roosevelt

What I have learned from my own experience is that the most important ingredients in a child’s education are curiosity, interest, imagination, and a sense of the adventure of

life.

There is no human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep.

This part of learning—learning as you go—gives life its salt. And this, too, comes back primarily to interest. You must be interested in anything that comes your way.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don’t be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren’t paying any attention to you.

Actually, you can finish any task much quicker if you concentrate on it for fifteen minutes than if you give it divided attention for thirty.

So it is a major part of maturity to accept not only your own shortcomings but those of the people you love, and help them not to fail when you can.

Consider the truly happy people you know. I think it is unlikely that you will find that circumstances have made them happy. They have made themselves happy in spite of circumstances.

three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: “A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.”

Your ambition should be to get as much life out of living as you possibly can, as much enjoyment, as much interest, as much experience, as much understanding. Not simply to be what is generally called “a success.”

Mozart, who was buried in a pauper’s grave, was one of the greatest successes we know of, a man who in his early thirties had poured out his inexhaustible gift of music, leaving the world richer because he had passed that way. To leave the world richer—that is the ultimate success.

The minimum, the very basic minimum, of a citizen’s duty is to cast a vote on election day. Even now, too few of us discharge this minimal duty.

But if our chief obligation is to cast a vote, this carries with it a further duty—to vote intelligently. And here we hit a snag.

To vote intelligently you must have an understanding of issues and the different points of view as to how they can best be handled. You must have some way of appraising and evaluating the men who appeal for your suffrage to enable them to handle the issues. You must understand how things get done through political action. You must know, in general if not in particular, what kind of country you want to live in and how these issues will affect the main picture.

A man can protect himself with fists or sword but his best weapon is his intellect.