Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

“I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.”

“We must open our eyes and see that modern civilization has become so complex and the lives of civilized men so interwoven with thelives of other men in other countries as to make it impossible to be in this world and out of it.”

“Liberty requires opportunity to make a living--a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.”

“I've fired my last shot. I think I should have another round in my belt.”

“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.”

“Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.”

“I have a terrific headache.”

“Concentration of wealth and power has been built upon other people's money, other people's business, other people's labor. Under this concentration, independent business has been a menace to American society.”

“Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred!”

“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.”

“Since I am used to speaking in public, I know that it is useless.”

“Inquisitiveness is the most useful talent.”

“All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River”

“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.”

“A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.”

“These are bad days for all of us who remember always that when real world forces come into conflict, the final result is never as dark as we mortals guess it in very difficult days.”

“In time of this grave national danger, when all excess income should go to win the war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year.”

“On this tenth day of June, nineteen hundred and forty, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.... In our unity, in our American unity we will pursue two obvious and simultaneous courses; we will extend to the opponents of force the material resources of this nation, and at the same time we will harness and speed up the use of those resources in order that we ourselves in the Americas may have equipment and training equal to the task of any emergency and every defense.”

“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.”

“It is time to extend planning to a wider field, in this instance comprehending in one great project many states directly concerned with the basin of one of our greatest rivers.”

“Economic diseases are highly communicable. It follows therefore that the economic health of every country is a proper matter of concern to all its neighbors, near or distant.”

“The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.”

“That is the spiral galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns. Now I think we are small enough.”

“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. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.”

“It [concentration of wealth and power] has been a menace to . . . American democracy.”