F. D. Roosevelt Quotes

I hope that your committee will not permit doubt as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation

I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble.

Books cannot be killed by fire.

As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.

The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public--on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system.

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.

All of us in all the Americas will be living at the point of a gun.

Our government is based on the belief that a people can be both strong and free, that civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against abuse of freedom.

The driving force of a nation lies in its spiritual purpose, made effective by free, tolerant but unremitting national will.

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

You cannot organize civilization around the core of militarism and at the same time expect reason to control human destinies.

I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work...More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.

I call for effort, courage, sacrifice, devotion. Granting the love of freedom, all of these are possible. And the love of freedom is still fierce and steady in the nation today. June 10, 1940

New Orleans makes it possible to go to Europe without ever leaving the United States.

The chief problem is, of course, whether the marching of the general spirit of things is heading consciously or sub- consciously toward an idea of extension of boundaries.

The first twelve years are the hardest.

Frankly, I do not know how to effect a permanency in American foreign policy.

I love it--I just love it.

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

I fearthat both dictators [Hitler and Mussolini] think their present methods are succeeding because of the gains they have made in Albania, Hungary and Yugoslavia.

It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.

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.

The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it. Life is a great adventure, and I want to say to you, accept it in such a spirit.

I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.

Gradually the true Mason gains experience in using these working tools and can observe subtler and subtler indications of personal flaws.

Burning fossil fuels is like breaking up the furniture to feed the fireplace because it's easier than going out to the woodpile.

Where a trust becomes a monopoly the state has an immediate right to interfere.

The wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation.

In a crisis, the man worth his salt is the man who meets the needs of the situation in whatever way is necessary.

I have no business to feel downcast or querulous merely because when so much as been given me I have not had even more.

I do not care a rap as to who gets credit for the work, provided the work is done.

We cannot do great deeds unless we're willing to do the small things that make up the sum of greatness.

Ours is a government of liberty by, through, and under the law. A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this.

To hell with the Constitution when people want coal!

The world wants the kind of men who do not shrink from temporary defeats in life; but come again and wrestle triumph from defeat.

A churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid downgrade.

We are the heirs of the ages

It is a wicked thing to be neutral between right and wrong.

The name Roosevelt has this legendary force in our country at this time.

Constructive change offers the best method for avoiding destructive change.

Nothing is gained by debate on non-debatable subjects.

It is by no means necessary that a great nation should always stand at the heroic level. But no nation has the root of greatness in it unless in time of need it can rise to the heroic mood.

To have acted otherwise ... would have been the betrayal of the interests of the United States.

I am rather more apt to read old books than new ones.

Do nothing to mar its grandeur ... keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.

No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war.

The worst of all fears is the fear of living

What I have advocated is not wild radicalism. It is the highest and wisest kind of conservatism.