Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

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

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

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.

Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.

People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.

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.

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.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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

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

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

The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred.

We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.

What America needs now is a drink.

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.

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

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

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

Go for the moon. If you don't get it, you'll still be heading for a star. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of the creative effort.

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

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.

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

In our democracy officers of the government are the servants, and never the masters of the people.

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

...Since 1775 the United States Marines have upheld a fine tradition of service to their country. They are doing so today. I am confident they will continue to do so.

Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.

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.

Presidents are selected, not elected.

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice…, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man.

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

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.

That, in its essence, is Fascism — ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.

Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy.

All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower.

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.

The best customer of American industry is the well paid worker.

"Appeasement" is the policy of feeding your friends to a crocodile, one at a time, in hopes that the crocodile will eat you last.

We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life giving assets to be directed by wise provisions for future days.

Peace, like charity, begins at home.

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.

Calm seas never made a good sailor

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

Tell that to the Marines!