Franklin D. Roosevelt's Quotes

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.

In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up - or else we all go down.

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

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

It is fun to be in the same decade with you.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

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

There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.

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

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

War is a contagion.

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

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

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.

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

I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

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.

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.

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.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

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

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

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.

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

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

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

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.

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.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

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.

Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.