Franklin D. Roosevelt famous quotes

...Since 1775 the United States Marines have upheld a fine tradition of service to their country. They are doing so today. I am confident they will continue to do so.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Country #Marine #United States

I've never been unemployed. I've never been very fully employed either.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Unemployed #Employed

Tell that to the Marines!
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Marine #Marine Corps

We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Children #Educational #Future

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Inspirational #Motivational #Success

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Life #Perseverance #Teaching

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#People #Voting #Way

In vain these economic royalists seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Democracy #Mob Rule #Flags

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Relationship #Money #Peace

Of course we believe these things. We believe in social security. We believe in work for the unemployed. We believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die! We believe in all these things. But we do not like the way that the present administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them, we will do more of them, we will do them better and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything!
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Believe #Home #Heart

Above all, try something
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Positive Thinking #Thinking #Trying

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

#Success #Real #Voting

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.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Jobs #Freedom #People

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Teamwork #Competition #Collaboration

Peace, like charity, begins at home.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Peace #Home #Charity

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

#Mother #Running #Children

If we do not halt this steady process of building commissions and regulatory bodies and the special legislation like huge inverted pyramids over every one of the simple constitutional provisions, we shall soon be spending many billions of dollars more.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Simple #Pyramids #Liberty

Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Real #Common Sense #World

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Clever #Men #Two

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Inspirational #Motivational #Success

In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By 'business' I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Country #Mean #Simple

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Judging #Judgement #Enemy

I ask especially that no state shall, by law or otherwise, authorize the return of the saloon, either in its old form or in some modern guise.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Law #Return #Modern

It is time to provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest, cannot be efficient.... We have in the darkest moments of our national trials retained our faith in our own ability to master our own destiny.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Destiny #Men #Cynical

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

#Patriotic #History #Political

Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Winning #People #Long

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

#Respect #Kindness #Character

When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Strength #Crush #Peace

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Destiny #Government #Class

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Country #Society #Trying

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Art #Past #Land

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Moving #Unity #Promise

Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Change #Philosophy #Medicine

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Destiny #Presidential #This Generation

In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice…, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Men #Justice #Fellow Man

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 goverment.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Strength #Peace #Strong

I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Smart #Political #Insightful

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Determination #People #History

Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Social #Situation

Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Membership #Privilege #Taxation

A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Business #Leader #Followers

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

#Fear #Patriotic #History

The real safeguard of democracy is education.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Real #Democracy

Great power involves great responsibility
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Responsibility #Great Power #Great Responsibility

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Struggle #Pride #Son

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

#Freedom #Power #Government

Calm seas never made a good sailor
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Sea #Sailor #Calm

They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Fighting #Sacrifice #Lust

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Endure

More than just an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Peace #War #Want

Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, do something else.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Fighting #Goal #Good Fight

I think this would be a good time for a beer.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Beer #Thinking #Would Be

To some generations much is given. Of other generations, much is expected.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Generations #Given #Expected

Forests are the lungs of our land......
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Land #Forests

Peace, like war, can succeed only where there is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Peace #War #Succeed

Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Men #Vanity #Underestimate

We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Civilization #Justice #Hatred

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?
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Government #Hands #Agriculture

Go for the moon. If you don't get it, you'll still be heading for a star. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of the creative effort.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Stars #Lying #Moon

It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead - and find no one there.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Leadership #Over You #Trying

Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Men #Sweat #Taxes

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.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#War #Sacrifice #Democracy

What America needs now is a drink,
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#America #Needs #Drink

The barrier to success is not something which exists in the real world; it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Wisdom #Real #Doubt

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Freedom #Expression #Essentials

There is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States-every man, woman, and child-is in action, and will be privileged to remain in action throughout this war. That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Children #War #Home

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Peace #War #Government

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Money #Political #Politics

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.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Business #Failure #Action

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Ocean #Self #Sea

The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Nature #Science #Land

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

#Military #Good Luck #Army

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

#Equality #Pay #Principles

If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Inspirational #People #Ethics

Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Yesterday #America #Air

Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Inspirational #Strength #Spiritual

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Leadership #Education #Teacher

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Thinking #Political #Cynical

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Nature #Men #Law

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Humor #Two #Quality

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Money #History #Presidential

If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Work #Unions #Firsts

To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Inspirational #Life #Anchors

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Usa #Goal #United States

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

#Hope #Recovery #Carpe Diem

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Principles #Sacred

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Men #Interesting #President

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted-in the air.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Men #Air #Feet

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Communication #Patriotic #Political

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Freedom #Believe #Feet

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

#Motivational #Leadership #Perseverance

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.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Peace #Party #Men

The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred...
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Hate #Hatred #Stronger

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Love #Self #Enemy

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

#Motivational #Commitment #Want

The Social Security Act offers to all our citizens a workable and working method of meeting urgent present needs and of forestalling future need. It utilizes the familiar machinery of our Federal-State government to promote the common welfare and the economic stability of the Nation.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Government #Needs #Citizens

Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Europe #Fortresses #Roof

A great man left a watchword that we can well repeat: "There is no indispensable man"
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Men #Speech #Indispensable

In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

#Ambition #People #Political