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.”… You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

This passage is widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt’s mid‑century reflections on resilience and personal growth, circulated in advice and inspirational contexts after her years as First Lady. It is commonly linked to her writing on confronting fear directly rather than avoiding it—an outlook shaped by public scrutiny, wartime pressures, and her long engagement with social reform and human rights work. The wording suggests a didactic, self-help register typical of her essays and public counsel, emphasizing lived experience (“I lived through this horror”) as the basis for developing courage and confidence.

Roosevelt frames courage as a cumulative practice: each time a person confronts fear directly, they acquire “strength, courage and confidence” that can be carried into the next trial. The key mechanism is self-testimony—being able to tell oneself, truthfully, “I lived through this.” The final imperative (“You must do the thing you think you cannot do”) turns the insight into a moral discipline: growth requires action at the edge of perceived capability. The quote’s significance lies in its pragmatic psychology: confidence is not a prerequisite for hard acts; it is the product of surviving them, which gradually reshapes one’s sense of what is possible.

1) “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”
2) “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
3) “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”