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Who really said it

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face

Written by Eleanor Roosevelt 1884–1962 · First Lady of the United States, 1933–1945; UN Human Rights Commission chair
Verified In copyright

Confirmed in Eleanor Roosevelt’s You Learn by Living (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1960), quote pages 29–30, in the chapter “Fear—the Great Enemy.” Quote Investigator transcribed the passage from the printed 1960 book ↗ and Wikiquote lists it in its sourced section at the same pages ↗. This is one of the rare Roosevelt lines that is exactly what it claims to be — though the longer version you usually see online has been quietly cut.

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

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Verified quote & credit

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face” Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 29–30, chapter "Fear—the Great Enemy." Genuine and precisely sourced. Note that the widely circulated longer version silently omits three sentences before "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The Estate of Eleanor Roosevelt and the book’s publishers (first published by Harper & Brothers, New York)). 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 Eleanor Roosevelt — First Lady of the United States and UN human rights delegate. Theme: "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face". 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.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face". 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

The source

Source
You Learn by Living
Chapter
Chapter 2 — “Fear—the Great Enemy”
First published
1960 · Harper & Brothers, New York (211 pp., LCCN 60010416)
Pages
29–30

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.’ The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. Harper & Brothers, 1960 · pp. 29–30

Transcribed as Quote Investigator gives it from the printed 1960 edition ↗. The version that circulates online drops the three middle sentences and reads “I have lived through this horror”; Wikiquote also prints “I have lived” and marks the omission with an ellipsis ↗.

Digitized book
Borrow the scanned edition at the Internet Archive
Open Library record for the 1960 Harper first edition

How we verified it

In copyright

You Learn by Living was first published in 1960 by Harper in New York ↗, well after the 1931 United States public-domain cutoff, so the book remains under copyright — as does the 1983 Westminster Press reprint ↗, which the Internet Archive holds as an access-restricted item. Quoting the sentence here for identification, attribution and commentary is ordinary fair use; the work itself is not free to reproduce.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The trouble around a genuine quote

This one is real — which is exactly why it causes trouble. A verified Roosevelt passage about facing fear has become the gravitational centre for a fake Roosevelt quote, and the passage itself is almost never quoted as printed.

“Do one thing every day that scares you” Not Roosevelt

This companion line is pinned on Roosevelt constantly, and it is not hers. Quote Investigator concludes that Mary Schmich should receive credit ↗, tracing the exact phrase to her 1 June 1997 Chicago Tribune column ↗, later set to music as Baz Luhrmann’s 1999 “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).” The genuine passage below is the reason the fake sounds plausible.

Quote aggregators and social posts Sentences removed

The circulating version jumps from “I can take the next thing that comes along” directly to “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” In the printed text three sentences sit between them — about refusing to face fear, about failure costing you confidence, and about making yourself succeed every time. Wikiquote marks the omission with an ellipsis ↗; most quote sites do not.

“I have lived through this horror” References differ

Our two specialist references do not agree on this inner sentence. Quote Investigator’s transcription, noted as verified on paper, reads “I lived through this horror” ↗, while Wikiquote prints “I have lived through this horror” ↗. We flag the difference rather than pick a winner; it does not affect the headline sentence, on which both agree exactly.

The famous sentence itself is authentic and precisely locatable: Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living (Harper & Brothers, 1960), pages 29–30, in the chapter “Fear—the Great Enemy” — transcribed from the printed book by Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

The sentence reads like a poster slogan, but in the book it is a piece of self-examination. Roosevelt opens the chapter by calling fear the worst stumbling block anyone has to face — “the great crippler” — and says that, looking back, her childhood and early youth were one long battle against it. The advice is not abstract encouragement from a confident woman; it is a report from someone describing how she taught herself to stop flinching.

You Learn by Living appeared in 1960, published by Harper & Brothers in New York. Roosevelt died in November 1962, so the book belongs to the last years of a life that had run from the White House through the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

What the popular version leaves out

The passage that circulates online normally runs the opening sentence, then “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along,” then jumps straight to “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” Three sentences sit in that gap in the printed book, and they are the demanding ones: the warning that the danger lies in refusing to face the fear, the caution that failing anywhere along the line will take your confidence away, and the instruction that you must make yourself succeed every time.

Wikiquote is honest about the cut and marks it with an ellipsis. Most quote aggregators present the shortened text as continuous prose, which turns a chapter’s argument into a slogan and drops the part that asks something of the reader.

Explore

Filed under

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

Courage Growth Resilience

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 Investigator: "Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You"quoteinvestigator.com

Transcribes the You Learn by Living passage from the 1960 Harper & Brothers printing ("Verified on paper," quote pages 29 and 30) and explains why this genuine passage fuels a famous fake Roosevelt quote.
Wikiquote: Eleanor Roosevelten.wikiquote.org

Carries the sentence in its sourced section under the heading "You Learn by Living (1960)" with the citation p. 29–30, and marks the omitted sentences with an ellipsis.
Open Library: You learn by living (1960 first edition)openlibrary.org

Catalogue record for the first edition: Harper, New York, 1960, 211 pages, LCCN 60010416 — the bibliographic confirmation of the publication date.
Internet Archive: You learn by living (scanned)archive.org

Scanned copy of the book, whose contents list shows the chapter "Fear: the great enemy" that contains the passage.
Wikipedia: Eleanor Roosevelten.wikipedia.org

Biography confirming her dates (11 October 1884 – 7 November 1962), her years as First Lady 1933–1945, and her leading role in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Wikipedia: Mary Schmichen.wikipedia.org

Documents her 1 June 1997 Chicago Tribune column, the line "Do one thing every day that scares you," and its frequent misattribution to Eleanor Roosevelt.

The true author

Who wrote it

Eleanor Roosevelt

1884–1962 · First Lady of the United States and UN human rights delegate

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (born 11 October 1884, died 7 November 1962) was First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945 and the first presidential spouse to write a daily syndicated newspaper column, “My Day.” After Franklin Roosevelt’s death she became the first United States Representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights and chaired it, taking a leading role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 — work she regarded as her greatest achievement. You Learn by Living, published by Harper & Brothers in 1960, was a late-life book of practical advice; its second chapter, “Fear—the Great Enemy,” draws directly on what she described as a childhood and early youth spent battling fear.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Roosevelt, Eleanor. You Learn by Living. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960. Chapter 2, “Fear—the Great Enemy,” 29–30.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face’?” Last verified 7 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/you-gain-strength-courage-and-confidence-by-every/

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