Top 10 Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
— 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
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
— 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
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt Quotes about Politics and Government
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
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
— 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
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
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 government.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us, God.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Best Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes on Life and Immigration
Let us not be afraid to help each other—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
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
— 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
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are as many opinions as there are experts.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
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.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.
— 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
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 too little.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
— 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
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
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.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
If you treat people right they will treat you right—ninety percent of the time.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
We… would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
— 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
We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The True conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it. The most serious threat to our institutions comes from those who refuse to face the need for change. Liberalism becomes the protection for the far-sighted conservative.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men’s enlightened will.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
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.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Be sincere, be brief, be seated.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Peace, like charity, begins at home.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
More Awesome Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
— 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
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.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
— 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
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.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
— 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
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
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
It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.
— 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
Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.
— 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
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.
— 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
I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
If you treat people right they will treat you right… ninety percent of the time.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment… If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.
— 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
It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.
— 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
There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up – or else we all go down.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.
— 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
I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
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
It is fun to be in the same decade with you.
— 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
The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.
— 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
Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
If I went to work in a factory the first thing I’d do is join a union.
— 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
I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
— 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
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
This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
— 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
It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.
— 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
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
We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
War is a contagion.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
