F. D. Roosevelt Quotes

I have often been afraid, but I would not give in to it. I made myself act as though I was not afraid and gradually my fear disappeared.

The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that he shall work in politics.

Ruin looks us in the face if we judge a man by his position instead of judging him by his conduct in that position.

In this world the one thing supremely worth having is the opportunity to do well and worthily a piece of work of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind.

Not trying is the surest way of achieving nothing at all.

Just as you believe you may have already halfway there

What I am to be, I am becoming.

It is only the warlike power of a civilized people that can give peace to the world.

The foes from whom we pray to be delivered are our own passions, appetites, and follies; and against these there is always need that we should war.

There are dreadful moments when death comes very near those we love, even if for the time being it passes by. But life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living.

I entirely appreciate loyalty to one"s friends, but loyalty to the cause of justice and honor stands above it.

From time to time, little men will find fault with what you have done...but they will go down the stream like bubbles, they will vanish. But the work you have done will remain for the ages.

No people ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue.

Argument weak; speak loudly!

Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character.

Every special interest is entitled to justice - full, fair, and complete... but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office.

Conservation means development as much as it does protection. A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can.

This broken country extends back from the river for many miles and has been called always be Indian, French voyager and American trappers alike, the Bad Lands.

What counts in a man or in a nation is not what the man or the nation can do, but what he or it actually does.

If I have erred, I err in company with Abraham Lincoln.

The only trouble with the movement for the preservation of our forests is that it has not gone nearly far enough, and was not begun soon enough.

Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation.

Oh, if only I could be President and Congress, too, just for ten minutes.

The duties are even more important than the rights; and in the long run I think that the reward is ampler and greater for duty well done, than for the insistence upon individual rights.

I enter a most earnest plea that in our hurried and rather bustling life of today we do not lose the hold that our forefathers had on the Bible.

The Cubists are entitled to the serious attention of all who find enjoyment in the colored puzzle pictures of the Sunday newspapers.

I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president.

When liberty becomes license, some form of one-man power is not far distant.

Rough board shelves hold a number of books, without which some of the evenings would be long indeed.

The fool who has not sense to discriminate between what is good and what is bad is well nigh as dangerous as the man who does discriminate and yet chooses the bad.

All that the law can do is to shape things so that no injustice shall be done by one to the other, and that each man shall be given the first chance to show the stuff that is in him.

I am simply unable to understand the value placed by so many people upon great wealth.

To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard.

The bulk of government is not legislation but administration.

Men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others.

It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone, but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching.

Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold but upon how you carry yourself in that position.

I never keep boys waiting. It's a hard trial for a boy to wait.

A leader is an average, everyday person who is highly motivated.

A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals.

It's not the critic that counts.

While my interest in natural history has added very little to my sum of achievement, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment in life.

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A small politician, of low capacity and mean surroundings, proud to act as the servile tool of men worse than himself but also stronger and abler.

Much of the usefulness of any career must lie in the impress that it makes upon, and the lessons that it teaches to, the generations that come after.

All constitutions, those of the States no less than that of the nation, are designed, and must be interpreted and administered so as to fit human rights.

The sons of all of us will pay in the future if we of the present do not do justice in the present.

Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.

I hate a man who skins the land.

We want the active and zealous help of every man far-sighted enough to realize the importance from the standpoint of the nation's welfare in the future of preserving the forests.