Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

I have no expectation of making a hit every time I come to bat.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I pledge you I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and courage. This is a call to arms.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Peace like charity begins at home.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I pledge you I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and courage. This is a call to arms.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Peace like charity begins at home.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want...everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear... anywhere in the world.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails admit it frankly and try another but above all try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
So let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless unreasoning unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
If I were starting life over again I am inclined to think that I would go into the advertising business in preference to almost any other. The general raising of standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half-century would have been impossible without that spreading of the knowledge of higher standards by means of advertising.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I think we consider too much the luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
One cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
To reach a port we must set sail –Sail, not tie at anchorSail, not drift.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Some people can never understand that you have to wait, even for the best of things, until the right time comes.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I sometimes think that the saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities- a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
People are not prisoners of fate, but prisoners of their own minds.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
All agree that, the first responsibility for the alleviation of poverty and distress and for the care of the victims of the depression rests upon the locality — its individuals, organizations and Government. It rests, first of all, perhaps, upon the private agencies of philanthropy, secondly, other social organizations, and last, but not least, the Church. Yet all agree that to leave to the locality the entire responsibility would result in placing the heaviest burden in most cases upon those who are the least able to bear it. In other words, the communities that have the most difficult problem, like Detroit, would be the communities that would have to bear the heaviest of the burdens. And so the State should step in to equalize the burden by providing for a large portion of the care of the victims of poverty and by providing assistance and guidance for local communities. Above and beyond that duty of the States the national Government has a responsibility.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We cannot always build a future for our youth, but we can always build our youth for the future.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
If you treat people right they will treat you right ... ninety percent of the time.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Several centuries ago the greatest writer in history described the two most menacing clouds that hang over human government and human society as "malice domestic and fierce foreign war." We are not rid of these dangers but we can summon our intelligence to meet them.Never was there more genuine reason for Americans to face down these two causes of fear. "Malice domestic" from time to time will come to you in the shape of those who would raise false issues, pervert facts, preach the gospel of hate, and minimize the importance of public action to secure human rights or spiritual ideals. There are those today who would sow these seeds, but your answer to them is in the possession of the plain facts of our present condition.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
From the end of the World War twenty-one years ago, this country, like many others, went through a phase of having large groups of people carried away by some emotion--some alluring, attractive, even speciously inspiring, public presentation of a nostrum, a cure-all. Many Americans lost their heads because several plausible fellows lost theirs in expounding schemes to end barbarity, to give weekly handouts to people, to give everybody a better job--or, more modestly, for example, to put a chicken or two in every pot--all by adoption of some new financial plan or some new social system. And all of them burst like bubbles.Some proponents of nostrums were honest and sincere, others--too many of them--were seekers of personal power; still others saw a chance to get rich on the dimes and quarters of the poorer people in our population. All of them, perhaps unconsciously, were capitalizing on the fact that the democratic form of Government works slowly. There always exists in a democratic society a large group which, quite naturally, champs at the bit over the slowness of democracy; and that is why it is right for us who believe in democracy to keep the democratic processes progressive--in other words, moving forward with the advances in civilization. That is why it is dangerous for democracy to stop moving forward because any period of stagnation increases the numbers of those who demand action and action now.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is the purpose of government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
A Radical is a man with both feet firmly planted--in the air. A Conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A Reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest--at the command--of his head.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidents are selected, not elected.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.Freedom
Franklin D. Roosevelt
War is young men dying and old men talking
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line—the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The Truth is found when men (and Women) are free to pursue it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
Franklin D. Roosevelt