Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

We know that there are chiselers. At the bottom of every case of criticism and obstruction we have found some selfish interest, some private axe to grind.

Books cannot be killed by fire.

Employers and employees alike have learned that in union there is strength.

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.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

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.

Democracy is not a static thing. It is an everlasting march.

I want to preach a new doctrine. A complete separation of business and government.

It has always seemed to me that the best symbol of common sense was a bridge.

Private enterprise is ceasing to be free enterprise. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

We have nothing to fear but missing our massage appointment time

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.

Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.

If civilization is to survive, the principles of the Prince of Peace must be restored. Shattered trust between nations must be revived. Most important of all, the will for peace on the part of peace-loving nations must express itself to the end that nations that may be tempted to violate their agreements and the rights of others will desist from such a cause. There must be positive endeavors to preserve peace. America hates war. America hopes for peace. Therefore, America actively engages in the search for peace.

New ideas can be good and bad, just the same as old ones.

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.

While things on the surface seem more quiet than at any time since last summer, I do not like the maintenance of what amounts to almost full mobilization in aggressor countries. Surely they cannot afford it and if they had any definite policy of trying to work out economic salvation (except by arms) they would be showing some signs of cutting military expenditures.

All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S.

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

Chamberlain's visit to Hitler today may bring things to a head or may result in a temporary postponement of what looks to me likean inevitable conflict within the next five years.

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.

Inside the polling booth every American man and woman stands as the equal of every other American man and woman. There they have no superiors. There they have no masters save their own minds and consciences.

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. 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. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.

I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.

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

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?

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Okay, you've convinced me. Now go out there and bring pressure on me.

'Peace on earth, good will toward men' - democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and moral purpose.

The world order which we seek is the co-operation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a peoples Government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people.

The only thing we have to fear...is audiovisual glitches at our annual event.

The trade agreement which I had the privilege of signing with your Prime Minister last autumn is tangible evidence of the desire of the people of both countries to practice what they preach when they speak of the good neighbor. In the solution of the grave problems that face the world today, frank dealing, cooperation and a spirit of give and take between nations is more important than ever before.

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

The motto of war is: "Let the strong survive; let the weak die." The motto of peace is: "Let the strong help the weak to survive."

Any Government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse.

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

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

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

When a country is at war we want Congressmen, regardless of party, to back up the government of the United States.

Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.

The constant free flow of communication amount us-enabling the free interchange of ideas-forms the very bloodstream of our nation. It keeps the mind and body of our democracy eternally vital, eternally young.

True wealth is not a static thing. It is a living thing made out of the disposition of men to create and distribute the good things of life with rising standards of living.

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

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

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.

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

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public--on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system.

Peace, like charity, begins at home.

A point has been reached where the peoples of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers--a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war.... Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power.

The future lies with those wise political leaders who realize that the great public is interested more in Government than in politics. The growing independence of voters, after all, has been proven by the votes in every Presidential election since my childhood and the tendency, frankly, is on the increase.

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

To reach a port we must set sail

Our policy is to give all possible material aid to the nations that still resist aggression across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. And we make it abundantly clear that we intend to commit none of the fatal errors of appeasement. We have the thought that in this nation of many states we have found the way in which men of many racial origins may live together in peace. If the human race as a whole is to survive, the world must find a way by which men and nations may live together in peace. We cannot accept the doctrine that war must be forever a part of man's destiny.

History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, 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 its government.

They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.

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