Did Eleanor Roosevelt say "Do one thing every day that scares you"?

Q: Did Eleanor Roosevelt say "Do one thing every day that scares you"?

No. The exact sentence first appears in Mary Schmich's 1 June 1997 Chicago Tribune column (later famous as the "Wear Sunscreen" essay). No documented source shows Eleanor Roosevelt ever said or wrote it — Schmich herself has said she has found no such evidence.

Who really said it

Do one thing every day that scares you

Not Eleanor Roosevelt — written by Mary Schmich Mary Schmich b. 1953 · Pulitzer-winning Chicago Tribune columnist; wrote the line in 1997

Disputed In copyright

The exact sentence first appears in Mary Schmich’s 1 June 1997 Chicago Tribune column (later famous as the “Wear Sunscreen” essay). No documented source shows Eleanor Roosevelt ever said or wrote it — Schmich herself has said she has found no such evidence.

Last verified 7 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“Do one thing every day that scares you” — Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, 1997 (not Eleanor Roosevelt)

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Mary Schmich / Chicago Tribune). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Mary Schmich — Chicago Tribune columnist. Theme: "Do one thing every day that scares you". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Do one thing every day that scares you". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Author: Mary Schmich
Work: “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young”
Published: Chicago Tribune, 1 June 1997
Also known as: the “Wear Sunscreen” essay

Do one thing every day that scares you. ↑ one line from a long list of playful graduation advice

The line runs as one beat in Schmich’s staccato list of mock-commencement advice — the same column that opens “Wear sunscreen.” It was written as a hypothetical graduation speech she would give “if I could.”

Quote Investigator: full origin chronology

How we verified this

1 June 1997 — the exact sentence appears in Mary Schmich’s Chicago Tribune column, per Quote Investigator ↗.
By 2008 the line is printed in Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries, Volume IX: Princess Mia credited to Eleanor Roosevelt — an early vector for the misattribution, documented by QI ↗.
Today it is routinely tagged to Eleanor Roosevelt on aggregators like Goodreads ↗, which notes such quotes are community-added and unverified.

In copyright

The quote is not public domain: it is a line from a 1997 newspaper column, in copyright to Mary Schmich / the Chicago Tribune. Reproduce with attribution.

Fact-check

Why Eleanor Roosevelt gets the credit

The sentence is one of the most confidently misattributed lines on the internet. The real author is alive and has publicly disowned the Roosevelt credit.

Eleanor Roosevelt

No speech, book, column, or letter by Roosevelt has ever been found containing the line. Quote Investigator ↗ notes the earliest exact match is Schmich in 1997 — decades after Roosevelt’s death in 1962 — and that Schmich herself said in 2012 she had seen no evidence Roosevelt said it. Roosevelt’s actual nearby line, from You Learn by Living (1960), is the different “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Kurt Vonnegut viral 1997

When Schmich’s column went viral by email in August 1997, it was falsely passed around as a Kurt Vonnegut MIT commencement address — a myth recounted by QI ↗. Vonnegut never gave that speech.

The exact wording is Mary Schmich’s, first printed in her 1 June 1997 Chicago Tribune column, per Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

An older family of the same idea

The sentiment is far older than 1997, which is part of why a grande dame like Eleanor Roosevelt feels like a plausible source. A whole family of “do the thing you fear” sayings runs back through the 20th and 19th centuries.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “Always do what you are afraid to do” in his 1841 essay Heroism, and Roosevelt’s own 1960 “You must do the thing you think you cannot do” sits squarely in the same tradition. But a shared theme is not the same as authorship of a specific sentence.

Same idea for 150 years — but this exact sentence is Schmich’s, 1997.

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Courage Growth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Do One Thing Every Day That Scares Youquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive chronology: exact 1997 Schmich match, the Vonnegut hoax, and the Roosevelt misattribution.

Traces the older Emerson/Twain-style family of “do the thing you fear” sayings the line is often confused with.

Goodreads quote page (as commonly mis-tagged)goodreads.com

Shows the entrenched Eleanor Roosevelt credit; notes quotes are community-added and unverified.

Mary Schmich — biographyen.wikipedia.org

Background on the columnist who actually wrote the line and won the 2012 Pulitzer for Commentary.

Eleanor Roosevelt — biographyen.wikipedia.org

The figure the line is wrongly attributed to; useful for separating her real writings from this one.

The real author

Mary Schmich

b. 1953 · Chicago Tribune columnist

Mary Schmich is an American journalist who wrote a metro column for the Chicago Tribune for decades and won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Her 1 June 1997 column — a tongue-in-cheek graduation speech beginning “Wear sunscreen” — became a global phenomenon after Baz Luhrmann set it to music in 1999. Its individual lines, including “Do one thing every day that scares you,” have since drifted loose and been re-credited to more famous names.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented source

Mary Schmich, “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young,” Chicago Tribune, 1 June 1997. Origin traced in Quote Investigator, “Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You,” 9 August 2013.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Do one thing every day that scares you’?” Last verified 7 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/do-one-thing-every-day-that-scares-you