Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

“It is the purpose of the 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.”

“Our national debt after all is an internal debt owed not only by the Nation but to the Nation. If our children have to pay interest on it they will pay that interest to themselves. A reasonable internal debt will not impoverish our children or put the Nation into bankruptcy.”

“Private enterprise is ceasing to be free enterprise.”

“All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower.”

“If the Nation is living within its income, its credit is good. If, in some crises, it lives beyond its income for a year or two, it can usually borrow temporarily at reasonable rates. But if, like a spendthrift, it throws discretion to the winds, and is willing to make no sacrifice at all in spending; if it extends its taxing to the limit of the peoples power to pay and continues to pile up deficits, then it is on the road to bankruptcy.”

“There can be little doubt that in many ways the story of bridge building is the story of civilisation. By it we can readily measure an important part of a people's progress.”

“Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it.”

“We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution - not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.”

“Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.”

“Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows.”

“Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.”

“If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free”

“That, in its essence, is Fascism — ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”

“Continued dependence on relief inducers a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.”

“The peoples of many countries are being taxed to the point of poverty and starvation in order to enable Governments to engage in a mad race in armament which, if permitted to continue, may well result in war. This grave menace to the peace of the world is due in no small measure to the uncontrolled activities of the manufacturers and merchants of engines of destruction, and it it must be met by the concerted actions of the peoples of all Nations.”

“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.”

“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.”

“A program whose basic thesis is, not that the system of free enterprise for profit has failed in this generation, but that it has not yet been tried!”

“Presidents are selected, not elected.”

“On both sides of the line, we are so accustomed to an undefended boundary three thousand miles long that we are inclined perhaps to minimize its vast importance, not only to our own continuing relations but also to the example which it sets to the other nations of the world.”

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

“And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.”

“The frontier of America is on the Rhine.”

“The first theory is that if we make the rich richer, somehow they will let a part of their prosperity trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory was the theory that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upward through the ranks.”

“The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry.”