Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes
Born
January 30, 1882, Hyde Park, New York, U.S.
Died
April 12, 1945.
Occupation
President, politician.
Franklin D. Roosevelt commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and dominated his party after 1932.
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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are as many opinions as there are experts.
– 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
We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
– 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.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
If you treat people right they will treat you right… ninety percent of the time.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
– 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.
– 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.
– 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
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.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
War is a contagion.
– 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.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
– 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.
– 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.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
– 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
In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up – or else we all go down.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
– 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
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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is fun to be in the same decade with you.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
If I went to work in a factory the first thing I’d do is join a union.
– 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.
– 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.
– 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.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt