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Home: Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

Politician
Born On
1882-01-30
Died On
1945-04-12
Birth Place
Hyde Park, New York, United States
Death Place
Little White House Historic Site, Georgia, United States
Birth Sign
aquarius
Nationality
American
Education
Harvard College, Columbia Law School
Political Leaders, Leaders, Presidents, Lawyers & Judges, Lawyers
Former American President Franklin D Roosevelt had won the hearts of many ardent followers during the course of his career. It didn't matter that "New York Herald Tribune" columnist, Walter Lippmann opined about him, "He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President". It is this interesting characteristic trait that Roosevelt employed during a meeting of his with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. Initially Roosevelt found it quite hard to break the ice with the rather stern-faced Stalin (nicknamed "the old buzzard" by the American President), but soon he decided to change his approach. The following day, before their conference started, Franklin Roosevelt told the British statesman as a warning, "Winston, I hope you won't be sore at me for what I'm going to do". Unbeknownst to Churchill, the English diplomat was made the butt of all jokes, be it his famous love for cigars or John Bull, a figure used to glorify England. This continued for quite some time till Winston Churchill was fuming with rage and Stalin was cracking up with laughter. Finally, the deed was done, and the great American leader had managed to cut through the Soviet chief's cold demeanour. With his peerless sense of humor, Roosevelt had not only befriended the uncommunicative Stalin, but had also taken the liberty of calling the latter, "Uncle Joe".

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

Nothing Politics
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Life World Hope
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Fear
Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Democracy Education
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Power Country Democracy Government
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Good Politics
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Relationship Peace Science World
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Motivation
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

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.

People Freedom Government Liberty
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Success Effort Happiness
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Confidence Integrity Honor
Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

Wisdom
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

Good Chance Good Fortune
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Enemies
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

People Voting
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Progress History
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

Principles
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

People Freedom Self-Reliance
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

America Wars
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

People Kindness
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

People Strength Nation
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Predestination
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Unity World History
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Things
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

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

World Intelligence
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

People Time
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Truth
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.

Affection
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

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

Country Society
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

People
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play.

Play
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Strength Faith
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Good Love Nothing
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

Nation
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Past Time
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

Business Country
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

Government
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Ability
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Greatness Power Wealth
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Determination Future Government
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.

Christianity
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Thinking Wish
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

People Progress Nation
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Greatness Change Progress
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Wars
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Autocracy Nation
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Progress
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Life Art Past
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

America School
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Fun
Franklin D. Roosevelt

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

Walking
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Past Wars Future
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Principles Determination Feelings
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Work
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Nature Women
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

Work
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Greatness
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Duty
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

People Government
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Education Government Knowledge
Franklin D. Roosevelt

War is a contagion.

Wars
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Nature
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

Predestination
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

People Country
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

People Depression
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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