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hentry category-eleanor-roosevelt category-william-ellery-channing tag-eleanor-roosevelt tag-readers-digest tag-william-ellery-channing entry"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title">No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent</h1> <div class="entry-meta"> <span class="byline"><svg class="svg-icon" width="16" height="16" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><path d="M12 12c2.21 0 4-1.79 4-4s-1.79-4-4-4-4 1.79-4 4 1.79 4 4 4zm0 2c-2.67 0-8 1.34-8 4v2h16v-2c0-2.66-5.33-4-8-4z"></path><path d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"></path></svg><span class="screen-reader-text">Posted by</span><span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/author/garson/">quoteresearch</a></span></span> <span class="posted-on"><svg class="svg-icon" width="16" height="16" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><defs><path id="a" d="M0 0h24v24H0V0z"></path></defs><clipPath id="b"><use xlink:href="#a" overflow="visible"></use></clipPath><path clip-path="url(#b)" d="M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12s4.5 10 10 10 10-4.5 10-10S17.5 2 12 2zm4.2 14.2L11 13V7h1.5v5.2l4.5 2.7-.8 1.3z"></path></svg><a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2011-03-30T08:02:57-04:00">March 30, 2011</time><time class="updated" datetime="2018-10-05T03:33:52-04:00">October 5, 2018</time></a></span> <span class="comment-count"> <span class="comments-link"><svg class="svg-icon" width="16" height="16" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><path d="M21.99 4c0-1.1-.89-2-1.99-2H4c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2v12c0 1.1.9 2 2 2h14l4 4-.01-18z"></path><path d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"></path></svg><a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/#comments">1 Comment<span class="screen-reader-text"> on No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent</span></a></span> </span> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p><strong><strong>Eleanor Roosevelt? Reader’s Digest? Apocryphal? Anonymous?</strong></strong></p> <p><strong>Dear Quote Investigator</strong>: There is a remarkably insightful statement about self-esteem that is usually credited to Eleanor Roosevelt, the diplomat and former First Lady:</p> <blockquote><p>No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.</p></blockquote> <p>This is one of my favorite quotations, but I have not been able to determine when it was first said. One quotation dictionary claimed that the saying was in the autobiography “This is My Story” by Roosevelt, but I was unable to find it.</p> <p>Did Eleanor Roosevelt really say this? Could you tell me where I can locate this quotation?</p> <p><strong>Quote Investigator</strong>: This popular aphorism is the most well-known guidance ascribed to Roosevelt. Quotation experts such as Rosalie Maggio and Ralph Keyes have explored the origin of this saying. Surprisingly, a thorough examination of the books the First Lady authored and her other archived writings has failed to discover any instances of the quote [QVFI].</p> <p>Yet, the saying has been attributed to Roosevelt for more than seventy years. The earliest example located by <strong>QI</strong> appeared in the pages of the widely-distributed periodical Reader’s Digest in September of 1940 [RDFI]:</p> <blockquote><p>No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.<br /> Eleanor Roosevelt</p></blockquote> <p>Thus, from the beginning the phrase was credited to Roosevelt. However, no supporting reference was given in the magazine, and the quote stood alone at the bottom of a page with unrelated article text above it.</p> <p>Recently, <strong>QI</strong> located some intriguing evidence, and he now believes that the creation of this maxim can be traced back to comments made by Eleanor Roosevelt about an awkward event in 1935. The Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt administration was invited to give a speech at the University of California, Berkeley on the Charter Day of the school. The customary host of the event was unhappy because she felt that the chosen speaker should not have been a political figure. She refused to serve as the host and several newspaper commentators viewed her action as a rebuff and an insult.</p> <p>Eleanor Roosevelt was asked at a White House press conference whether the Secretary had been snubbed, and her response was widely disseminated in newspapers. Here is an excerpt from an Associated Press article [ERNC]:</p> <blockquote><p>“A snub” defined the first lady, “is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.”</p> <p>She made clear she didn’t think the labor secretary fell within the category of the “snubable.”</p></blockquote> <p>Note that this statement by Roosevelt in 1935 contained the key elements of the quotation that was assigned to her by 1940. One person may try to make a second person feel inferior, but this second person can resist and simply refuse to feel inferior. In this example, the labor secretary refused to consent to feel inferior.</p> <p>The precise wording given for Roosevelt’s statement varied. Here is another example that was printed in a syndicated newspaper column called “So They Say!” the following week. The columnist stated that the following was the definition of a “snub” given by Roosevelt [OWFI]:</p> <blockquote><p>I think it is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. First, though, you have to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.</p></blockquote> <p>Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.</p> <p><img decoding="async" title="More..." src="https://quoteinvestigator.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" alt="" />Sometime between 1935 and 1940 Eleanor Roosevelt’s commentary was reformulated into the elegant aphorism that was published in the Reader’s Digest. Roosevelt may have done this herself. Alternatively, someone else decided to render her remarks compactly and stylishly [RDFI]:</p> <blockquote><p>No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.<br /> Eleanor Roosevelt</p></blockquote> <p>The next month, in October of 1940 the saying appeared as the first line of an editorial in a newspaper from Iowa. The words were placed between quotation marks, but no attribution was given [LPFI]:</p> <blockquote><p>“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”</p> <p>That is a good thing to remember. If you feel uncertain of yourself, it is a good pointer to remember. If you feel uncertain of yourself, it is easy to make you feel inferior by making a slighting remark. But if you feel confident you can laugh it off.</p></blockquote> <p>At the end of October the maxim appeared freestanding in an Alaskan newspaper where it was credited to Roosevelt [FDFI]:</p> <blockquote><p>Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”</p></blockquote> <p>In June of 1941 the aphorism appeared on a newspaper page dedicated to the topics of “Home, Church, Religion, Character” within a column titled “Sermonograms”. The words were credited to Eleanor Roosevelt [HNFI].</p> <p>In February of 1944 the saying appeared in the widely-read syndicated column of Walter Winchell where it was again credited to Roosevelt [WWF1]. In February 1945 the maxim was repeated in Winchell’s influential column. On this second occasion Winchell employed a word from his specialized vocabulary, “Frixample”, in the introduction [WWF2]:</p> <blockquote><p>Mrs. F.D.R. can turn out punchlines with the best of ’em. Frixample: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”</p></blockquote> <p>The Yale Book of Quotations, an essential reference, contains a compelling precursor to the quote under investigation listed as a cross-index term. More than one-hundred years before the cites above, in 1838, the American clergyman William Ellery Channing said the following [YWEC] [SWEC]:</p> <blockquote><p>No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.</p></blockquote> <p>In conclusion, <strong>QI</strong> believes that Eleanor Roosevelt can be credited with expressing the core idea of this saying by 1935. Within five years the graceful modern version of the maxim was constructed. <strong>QI</strong> does not know if Roosevelt or someone else was responsible for this. But <strong>QI</strong> does believe Roosevelt’s words were the most likely inspiration.</p> <p>Update History: This post was rewritten on April 30, 2012 and the updated version was placed here on May 7, 2012.</p> <p>[QVFI] 2006, The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes, Page 97-98, St Martin鈥檚 Griffin, New York. (Verified on paper)</p> <p>[RDFI] 1940 September, The Reader鈥檚 Digest, [Free standing quotation], Page 84, Volume 37, The Reader鈥檚 Digest Association. (Verified on paper)</p> <p>[ERNC] 1935 March 26, News And Courier, Heart Balm Suit Ban Given Support By Mrs. Roosevelt, Page 7, Charleston, South Carolina. (Google News Archive)</p> <p>[OWFI] 1935 April 2, Owosso Argus-Press, So They Say!, Page 4, Column 4, Owosso, Michigan. (Google News Archive)</p> <p>[LPFI] 1940 October 10, Lake Park News, The Little Newsance: Editorial by Ardell Proctor, Page 7, Column 1, Lake Park, Iowa. (NewspaperArchive)</p> <p>[FDFI] 1940 October 30, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, [Free standing quotation], Page 2, Column 1, Fairbanks, Alaska. (NewspaperArchive)</p> <p>[HNFI] 1941 June 6, Huntingdon Daily News, Sermonograms, Page 11, Column 2, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. (NewspaperArchive)</p> <p>[WWF1] 1944 February 29, Augusta Chronicle, Walter Winchell: In New York: Notes of an Innocent Bystander, Page 4, Column 7, Augusta, Georgia. (GenealogyBank)</p> <p>[WWF2] 1945 February 25, St. Petersburg Times, Walter Winchell, Page 24, Column 7, St. Petersburg, Florida. (Google News archive)</p> <p>[YWEC] 2006, The Yale Book of Quotations by Fred R. Shapiro, Section: William Ellery Channing, Page 143, Yale University Press, New Haven. (Verified on paper)</p> <p>[SWEC] 1838 [Address delivered in Boston in September 1838], Self-Culture: An Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Page 80, Dutton and Wentworth, Printers, Boston, Massachusetts. (Google Books full view) <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=8JpDAAAAIAAJ&q=%22no+hardship%22#v=snippet&">link</a></p> </div> <footer class="entry-footer"> <span class="byline"><svg class="svg-icon" width="16" height="16" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><path d="M12 12c2.21 0 4-1.79 4-4s-1.79-4-4-4-4 1.79-4 4 1.79 4 4 4zm0 2c-2.67 0-8 1.34-8 4v2h16v-2c0-2.66-5.33-4-8-4z"></path><path d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"></path></svg><span class="screen-reader-text">Posted by</span><span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/author/garson/">quoteresearch</a></span></span><span class="posted-on"><svg class="svg-icon" width="16" height="16" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><defs><path id="a" d="M0 0h24v24H0V0z"></path></defs><clipPath id="b"><use xlink:href="#a" overflow="visible"></use></clipPath><path clip-path="url(#b)" d="M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12s4.5 10 10 10 10-4.5 10-10S17.5 2 12 2zm4.2 14.2L11 13V7h1.5v5.2l4.5 2.7-.8 1.3z"></path></svg><a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2011-03-30T08:02:57-04:00">March 30, 2011</time><time class="updated" datetime="2018-10-05T03:33:52-04:00">October 5, 2018</time></a></span><span class="cat-links"><svg class="svg-icon" width="16" height="16" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M10 4H4c-1.1 0-1.99.9-1.99 2L2 18c0 1.1.9 2 2 2h16c1.1 0 2-.9 2-2V8c0-1.1-.9-2-2-2h-8l-2-2z"></path><path d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"></path></svg><span class="screen-reader-text">Posted in</span><a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/category/eleanor-roosevelt/" rel="category tag">Eleanor Roosevelt</a>, <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/category/william-ellery-channing/" rel="category tag">William Ellery Channing</a></span><span class="tags-links"><svg class="svg-icon" width="16" height="16" aria-hidden="true" role="img" focusable="false" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M21.41 11.58l-9-9C12.05 2.22 11.55 2 11 2H4c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2v7c0 .55.22 1.05.59 1.42l9 9c.36.36.86.58 1.41.58.55 0 1.05-.22 1.41-.59l7-7c.37-.36.59-.86.59-1.41 0-.55-.23-1.06-.59-1.42zM5.5 7C4.67 7 4 6.33 4 5.5S4.67 4 5.5 4 7 4.67 7 5.5 6.33 7 5.5 7z"></path><path d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"></path></svg><span class="screen-reader-text">Tags: </span><a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/tag/eleanor-roosevelt/" rel="tag">Eleanor Roosevelt</a>, <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/tag/readers-digest/" rel="tag">Reader's Digest</a>, <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/tag/william-ellery-channing/" rel="tag">William Ellery Channing</a></span> </footer> </article> <nav class="navigation post-navigation" aria-label="Posts"> <h2 class="screen-reader-text">Post navigation</h2> <div class="nav-links"><div class="nav-previous"><a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/27/mount-palomar-problem/" rel="prev"><span class="meta-nav" aria-hidden="true">Previous Post</span> <span class="screen-reader-text">Previous post:</span> <br/><span class="post-title">Combining the Mount Wilson and Mount Palomar Telescopes Still Won’t Be Enough</span></a></div><div class="nav-next"><a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/02/progress-too-long/" rel="next"><span class="meta-nav" aria-hidden="true">Next Post</span> <span class="screen-reader-text">Next post:</span> <br/><span class="post-title">Progress May Have Been All Right Once, But It Went On Too Long</span></a></div></div> </nav> <div id="comments" class="comments-area comments-closed"> <div class="comments-title-wrap"> <h2 class="comments-title"> One reply on “No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent” </h2> </div> <ol class="comment-list"> <li id="comment-2505" class="comment even thread-even depth-1"> <article id="div-comment-2505" class="comment-body"> <footer class="comment-meta"> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6666e8c61d50b86ffe59be7917a7b12a?s=60&d=mm&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6666e8c61d50b86ffe59be7917a7b12a?s=120&d=mm&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' decoding='async'/><b class="fn">Anant</b> <span class="screen-reader-text says">says:</span> </div> <div class="comment-metadata"> <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/#comment-2505"><time datetime="2012-02-17T03:44:33-05:00">February 17, 2012 at 3:44 am</time></a> </div> </footer> <div class="comment-content"> <p>Thanks for this post. I was curious about this one as well even though there was a source cited. Funny how simply citing a source can make a quote “valid.” Would it be appropriate to cite this one as “Anonymous”?</p> </div> </article> </li> </ol> <p class="no-comments"> Comments are closed. </p> </div> </main> </div> </div> <footer id="colophon" class="site-footer"> <aside class="widget-area" aria-label="Footer"> <div class="widget-column footer-widget-1"> <section id="block-4" class="widget widget_block widget_search"><form role="search" method="get" action="https://quoteinvestigator.com/" class="wp-block-search__button-outside wp-block-search__text-button wp-block-search" ><label class="wp-block-search__label" for="wp-block-search__input-1" >Search</label><div class="wp-block-search__inside-wrapper " ><input class="wp-block-search__input" id="wp-block-search__input-1" placeholder="" value="" type="search" name="s" required /><button aria-label="Search" class="wp-block-search__button wp-element-button" type="submit" >Search</button></div></form></section> </div> </aside> <div class="site-info"> <a class="site-name" href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/" rel="home">Quote Investigator庐</a>, <a href="https://wordpress.org/" class="imprint"> Proudly powered by WordPress. </a> <a class="privacy-policy-link" href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/privacy-policy/" rel="privacy-policy">Privacy Policy</a><span role="separator" aria-hidden="true"></span> </div> </footer> </div> <div id="amp-mobile-version-switcher" hidden> <a rel="" href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/?amp=1"> Go to mobile version </a> </div> <script src="https://quoteinvestigator.com/wp-content/themes/twentynineteen/js/touch-keyboard-navigation.js?ver=20230621" id="twentynineteen-touch-navigation-js" defer data-wp-strategy="defer"></script> </body> </html>