College is hard. Classes can get the best of you, teachers can tear you down, and, with full-blown adulthood looming around the corner, the future can look a lot like a storm of unknowns approaching on the horizon. Discouragement creeps in and lack of motivation can be seen in almost all of your assignments. It's just that time of year.

And sometimes you sit back and wish someone had told you that it was going to be one the hardest and yet best experience of your life. Oh wait, someone probably did. Well, to whoever said that, you were right.

However, with finals are approaching, the next few weeks are menacing and unexciting.It's that time again. When stress has become synonymous with breathing and when our faces are about two days away from a full blown break-out caused by lack of sleep and a diet consisting of every variety of Cook Out tray known to man (and woman).

It is times like these when we must reflect on the past in order to prepare ourselves for the future. It makes life a little easier knowing that so many before us have achieved greatness (and/or survived college), which in turn gives us hope that we can do the same. Whether your definition of greatness is becoming the next leader of the free world or simply becoming the best stay-at-home mom you can be, we can all use a little encouragement around this time of year, especially for you seniors.

And that is where Eleanor Roosevelt comes in.

As a woman myself, I have a plethora of women that I look up to in times of sorrow, stress, joy, and contentment. Eleanor Roosevelt happens to be a favorite of mine. She experienced the death of her parents, the presidency of her husband, the death of her husband, and through out it all she kept her head on her shoulders and lived to become one of the most influential women of her time. Her achievements in the realm of Human Rights are still remembered today, but I fear that so much of the world will remember her name but not remember her words.

Her words are the epitome of encouragement. My hopes are that maybe with one of these quotes, you can find that last bit of motivation to finish that 12-page paper on the anatomy of the human brain or maybe discover the will power to study that one little chapter of Economics that you might have slept through in class last Friday morning (don't worry, I won't tell).

So from a woman to the world, here are a few of the best phrases spoken by Eleanor Roosevelt. May her words never be forgotten or under appreciated -- only read, deeply felt and loved.

1. "You must do the things you think you cannot do."

2. "With a new day comes new strength and new thoughts."

3. "In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make our ultimately our own responsibility."

4. "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and 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."

5. "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of one's dreams."

6. "People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. That is how character is built."

7. "Friendship with one's self is important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world."

8. "It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan."

9. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

10. "Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life."