Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life giving assets to be directed by wise provisions for future days.

We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

The public schools shall be free from sectarian influences and, above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed.

"Appeasement" is the policy of feeding your friends to a crocodile, one at a time, in hopes that the crocodile will eat you last.

In a democratic nation, power must be linked with responsibility, and obliged to defend and justify itself within the framework of the general good.

We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought.

People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.

You'll have to learn that public life takes a lot of sweat; but it doesn't need to worry you. You won't always be right, but you mustn't suffer from being wrong. That's what kills people like us.

The chief problem is, of course, whether the marching of the general spirit of things is heading consciously or sub- consciously toward an idea of extension of boundaries.

Resort to force in the Great War (I) failed to bring tranquillity. Victory and defeat alike were sterile. That lesson the world should have learned.

A serf-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours.

The core of our defense is the faith we have in the institutions we defend.

We have the men--the skill--the wealth--and above all, the will.... We must be the great arsenal of democracy.

The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.

On the European Front the most important development of the past year has been the crushing offensive of the Great Armies of Russia.

I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.

A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command-of his head.

Our security is not a matter of weapons alone. The arm that wields them must be strong, the eye that guides them clear, the will that directs them indomitable.

A government can be no better than the public opinion which sustains it.

Presidents are selected, not elected.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

It is a good thing to demand liberty for ourselves and for those who agree with us, but it is a better thing and a rarer thing to give liberty to others who do not agree with us.

We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.

Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?

Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form.

As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

I read in a newspaper that I was to be received with all the honors customarily rendered to a foreign ruler. I am grateful for the honors; but something within me rebelled at that word 'foreign'. I say this because when I have been in Canada, I have never heard a Canadian refer to an American as a 'foreigner'. He is just an 'American'. And, in the same way, in the United States, Canadians are not 'foreigners', they are 'Canadians'. That simple little distinction illustrates to me better than anything else the relationship between our two countries.

Happiness is not merely money, which is fun for effort and achievement

This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

In the field of world policy; I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.

If you have spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, everything else seems easy.

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.

No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.

We may make mistakes-but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.

There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbal of the great human principle.

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory.

The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.

The traditional Jeffersonian principle of religious freedom was so broadly democratic that it included the right to have no religion at all - it gave to the individual the right to worship any God he chose or no god.

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country... By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - I mean the wages of decent living.

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

I have seen war ... I hate war.