Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Selfish, Men, Eagles

  The Four Freedoms, delivered 6 January, 1941 (photo of FDR in 1936)

  407 Copy quote

• We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  War, Race, Drug

  Campaign address, Brooklyn, New York, November 1, 1940.

  417 Copy quote

• 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

  Respect, Kindness, Character

  334 Copy quote

• Do Something.
  If it works, do more of it.
  If it doesn't,
  do something else.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Action, Ifs

  64 Copy quote

• The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Freedom, Power, Essence

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1941). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1938, Volume 7”, p.305, Best Books on

  461 Copy quote

• Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Peace, Truth, Integrity

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1941). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1939, Volume 8”, p.557, Best Books on

  341 Copy quote

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

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Wrestling, People, Acting

  334 Copy quote

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

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  90 Copy quote

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

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  War, Political, Politics

  251 Copy quote

• The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Leadership, Bullying

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1933 See Francis Bacon 7; Montaigne 4; Thoreau 16; Wellington 3

  311 Copy quote

• 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

  Money, Economic Inequality, History

  Second Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1937

  298 Copy quote

• Calm seas never made a good sailor

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Sea, Sailor, Calm

  69 Copy quote

• 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

  Country, Witty, Patriotic

  Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address at Marietta, Ohio, July 8, 1938.

  324 Copy quote

• 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

  Jobs, Freedom, People

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt”, Gramercy

  355 Copy quote

• It is better to swallow words than to have to eat them later.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Humorous

  36 Copy quote

• Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Men, Vanity, Underestimate

  341 Copy quote

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

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Xenophobia, Patriotic, Usa

  Remarks before Daughters of the American Revolution Convention, Washington, D.C., 21 Apr. 1938. Often paraphrased as Roosevelt's addressing the DAR as "my fellow immigrants."

  394 Copy quote

• The real safeguard of democracy is education.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Real, Democracy

  "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1938, Volume 7".

  13 Copy quote

• Presidents are selected, not elected.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  President, Politics, Selected

  86 Copy quote

• We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  War, Hate, Struggle

  Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address at Madison Square Garden, New York City, October 31, 1936).

  253 Copy quote

• The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Nature, Science, Land

  Letter to all State Governors on a Uniform Soil Conservation Law, February 26, 1937.

  52 Copy quote

• I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line—the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Mother, Running, Children

  Speech at Chautauqua, NY, 14 Aug. 1936, in Public Papers (1936) vol. 5, p. 289

  58 Copy quote

• 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

  Hope, Recovery, Carpe Diem

  103 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Voting, Way

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1950). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1944-1945, Volume 13”, p.318, Best Books on

  132 Copy quote

• We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Freedom, Expression, Essentials

  Annual Message to Congress, 6 Jan. 1941 See Roosevelt and Churchill 3

  367 Copy quote

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