Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than it can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools.

I want to preach a new doctrine. A complete separation of business and government.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson...

I have no expectation of making a hit every time I come to bat.

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.

I think this would be a good time for a beer.

[The United States is] founded on the principles of Christianity

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering

People die, but books never die.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

If you hold your fire until you see the whites of his eyes, you will never know what hit you.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.

The barrier to success is not something which exists in the real world; it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability.

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.

Liberty requires opportunity to make a living--a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

A government can be no better than the public opinion which sustains it.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

Do the best you can do and wait the results in peace.

How many people in the United States do you think will be willing to go to war to free Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania?

The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.

The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.

The public schools shall be free from sectarian influences and, above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

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

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

The American People in their Righteous Might will win through to Absolute Victory.

To reach a port we must set sail

December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift.

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.

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.

Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.

To stand upon ramparts and die for our principles is heroic, but to sally forth to battle and win for our principles is something more than heroic.

We must be the great arsenal of Democracy.

This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Inequality may linger in the world of material things, but great music, great literature, great art and the wonders of science are, and should be, open to all.

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.

I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.

The true conservative is the man who has a real concern for injustices and takes thought against the day of reckoning.

Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.

The real safeguard of democracy is education.

Beware of that profound enemy of the free enterprise system who pays lip-service to free competition, but also labels every antitrust prosecution as a persecution.