Title You Learn by Living

Author Eleanor Roosevelt

Year Published 1960

Kind of Book Self-Help

How strongly I recommend it 6/10 

My Impressions I had heard a few quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt in passing that really stuck with me. I will say, the book was a little underwhelming based on my expectations, but I got some value from it. Particularly the idea about how important our need is for contribution.

Date Read December 2019

Practical Takeaways

  • Experience all you can as deeply as you can

  • Learn from living

  • Study geography

  • Learn how to learn

  • Read at least a few of the classics

  • Read the Greek Philosophers

  • Read some of the Greek plays

  • Make people talk about whatever they are interested in and learn as much as you can about that subject

  • Every time a child asks "why?" answer it with care and respect. If you don't know the answer, take the child with you to find the answer together.

  • Approach life with a spirit of adventure

  • Surround children with culture and objects of beauty. Be sure that they understand them (eg. Statues, paintings etc.)

  • Do the thing you think you cannot do

  • Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you.

  • Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart

  • Write out only the beginning and end of a speech and put the main body of the speech in notes. -Louis Howe

  • Never write your whole speech down word for word A: you will lose your audience-Louis Howe

  • When you have said what you have to say, sit down-Louis Howe

  • Bring up children to be as free of fear as possible

  • Have a certain number of rules for your children to live by

  • Concentrate on the thing at hand

  • Concentrate on the task with all of your attention A: 15mins of full attention is better than 30 minutes of divided attention

  • Organize your time

  • Be able to be flexible with changing your plans when things come up

  • Begin each day at approximately the same hour

  • See friends in the evenings

  • Surround yourself with young people as you age

  • Be ready to let [your children] go when the time comes

  • Don't let time drift through your fingers

  • Don't think only in absolutes

  • Have knowledge of yourself

  • Be honest with yourself

  • Face the truth about yourself

  • Learn by doing

  • Become aware of your limitations

  • Accept your limitations

  • Accept what other people are unable to give you

  • Accept the shortcomings of those you love

  • Don't force others into the image of who you think they should be

  • Encourage others to develop along their own lines

  • Don't try to make your children achieved what you failed to achieve

  • Teach others through demonstration

  • Don't compare yourself with others

  • Forget criticism when it is not constructive

  • Put criticism made out of malic out of your mind entirely

  • Accept criticism when it is constructive and try to profit from it

  • Set your values

  • Stay busy to stop thinking about yourself

  • Constantly put effort into your relationships with your friends and family

  • Make a tremendous effort to find out what is happening in your children's life

  • Invite your Daughter to lunch with you one on one.

  • Buy your daughter a bouquet of flowers

  • Don't make happiness your goal

  • Give pleasure to others

  • Don't map out a way of life in which you please yourself completely and exclusively.

  • Don't become self absorbed

  • Be honest with those around you A: recipe for happiness

  • Make sure you feel useful to others

  • If you must cry, go into the bathroom and cry alone into the bathtub

  • Don't make a parade of your unhappiness

  • Make children feel necessary in their home life (eg. Give them chores

  • Read books for the blind

  • Live up to your word

  • Don't adopt the values or someone else or some other community of people

  • Get as much out of living as you possibly can

  • Leave the world richer

  • Teach your child not to desire things just because others have them

  • Parent by example

  • Live what you believe

  • Teach children to think for themselves

  • Encourage children to take part in the conversation and form their own opinions

  • Be able to say why you disagree

  • Know when to keep quite

  • Let women pass through a doorway before you if you're a man

  • Rise for older people

  • Choose clothes that express your personality

  • Choose clothes that are comfortable

  • Dare to look like yourself

  • Fill your home with pictures and things you love

  • (when speaking) instead of trying to look at everyone. Single out a child or one or two individuals

  • Be a good listener

  • Put yourself if the other person's place

  • Watch the audience for their reactions

  • Give the group you're leading a clear picture of the objective

  • When working with a group, take the result and let the credit go

  • Don't show a lack of respect for another person's customs

  • Be responsible for your actions

  • Encourage children to be responsible for their actions

  • Give children money that they make choices with what to do with

  • Widen the circle of acquaintances you have

  • Understand that there are no perfect choices

  • Don't say "it can't be done"

  • Vote intelligently

  • Have an understanding of the issues you're voting for

 

Big Ideas

  • If you focus on being happy as your goal you will move further away from it

  • Happiness comes as a by-product from doing/focusing on other things

 

  • Our need to be needed/useful is stronger than most people are aware

 

  • We justify our existence by being useful to others

 

  • Our fears are oftentimes worse than the reality

 

  • The ultimate success in life is to leave the world a richer place

 

  • It is only true to say someone believes something if he is behaving as though it were true

 

  • Cynicism is a form of philosophical defeat

 

  • Your genuine interest in one thing will always lead to interest in something else

 

  • Most fear is a result of not knowing

 

  • Your freedom is always contingent on other people's freedom

 

  • Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge

 

  • Aging is more painful for men than women

Because

  • Women have to learn early in life how to adjust to domineering men, so they are better at adjusting to growing older than men are

 

  • Each citizen is responsible for what their elected officials do

Because

  • They voted for them (or chose not to vote)

 

  • If you are happy everyone will want to be with you

  • If you are sad and cry, nobody will want to be with you

 

  • Many people make themselves busy to avoid having to think about themselves

 

  • Human relationships never remain static (they are either growing or dying)