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Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes | Quotes said by Franklin D. Roosevelt

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #1

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


  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #2

    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.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #3

    A Radical is a man with both feet firmly planted--in the air. A Conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A Reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest--at the command--of his head.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #4

    A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #5

    All agree that, the first responsibility for the alleviation of poverty and distress and for the care of the victims of the depression rests upon the locality — its individuals, organizations and Government. It rests, first of all, perhaps, upon the private agencies of philanthropy, secondly, other social organizations, and last, but not least, the Church. Yet all agree that to leave to the locality the entire responsibility would result in placing the heaviest burden in most cases upon those who are the least able to bear it. In other words, the communities that have the most difficult problem, like Detroit, would be the communities that would have to bear the heaviest of the burdens. And so the State should step in to equalize the burden by providing for a large portion of the care of the victims of poverty and by providing assistance and guidance for local communities. Above and beyond that duty of the States the national Government has a responsibility.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #6

    Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #7

    Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #8

    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 Quote #9

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #10

    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.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #11

    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.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #12

    First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #13

    For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. 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.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #14

    Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #15

    From the end of the World War twenty-one years ago, this country, like many others, went through a phase of having large groups of people carried away by some emotion--some alluring, attractive, even speciously inspiring, public presentation of a nostrum, a cure-all. Many Americans lost their heads because several plausible fellows lost theirs in expounding schemes to end barbarity, to give weekly handouts to people, to give everybody a better job--or, more modestly, for example, to put a chicken or two in every pot--all by adoption of some new financial plan or some new social system. And all of them burst like bubbles.

    Some proponents of nostrums were honest and sincere, others--too many of them--were seekers of personal power; still others saw a chance to get rich on the dimes and quarters of the poorer people in our population. All of them, perhaps unconsciously, were capitalizing on the fact that the democratic form of Government works slowly. There always exists in a democratic society a large group which, quite naturally, champs at the bit over the slowness of democracy; and that is why it is right for us who believe in democracy to keep the democratic processes progressive--in other words, moving forward with the advances in civilization. That is why it is dangerous for democracy to stop moving forward because any period of stagnation increases the numbers of those who demand action and action now.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #16

    Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #17

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #18

    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.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #19

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #20

    I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them.

    [Letter to Herbert Putnam; in: Waters, Edward N.: Herbert Putnam: the tallest little man in the world; Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 33:2 (April 1976), p. 171]

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #21

    I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line—the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #22

    I love it--I just love it.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #23

    I sometimes think that the saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities- a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #24

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #25

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #26

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #27

    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.

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #28

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #29

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

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Quote #30

    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.

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