Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

356 Sourced Quotes

The Nazi danger to our Western world has long ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is here now--not only from a military enemy but from an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is time to provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest, cannot be efficient.... We have in the darkest moments of our national trials retained our faith in our own ability to master our own destiny.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Where freedom of religion has been attacked, the attack has come from sources opposed to democracy. Where democracy has been overthrown, the spirit of free worship has disappeared. And where religion and democracy have vanished, good faith and reason in international affairs have given way to strident ambition and brute force.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Employers and employees alike have learned that in union there is strength.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
It will never be possible for any length of time for any group of the American people, either by reason of wealth or learning or inheritance or economic power, to retain any mandate, any permanent authority to arrogate to itself the political control of American public life.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
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.

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt
The core of our defense is the faith we have in the institutions we defend.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
The driving force of a nation lies in its spiritual purpose, made effective by free, tolerant but unremitting national will.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
There is much to be said against the climate on the coast of British Columbia and Alaska; yet, I believe that the scenery of one good day will compensate the tourists who will go there in increasing numbers.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Do not confuse objectives with methods. When the nation becomes substantially united in favor of planning the broad objectives of civilization, then true leadership must unite thought behind definite methods.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
I think that both here and in England there are two schools of thought--those who would be altruistic in regard to the Germans, hoping that by loving kindness to make them Christian again--and those who would adopt a much tougher attitude. Most decidedly I belong to the latter school, for though I am not blood-thirsty, I want the Germans to know that this time at least they have definitely lost the war.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Concentration of wealth and power has been built upon other people's money, other people's business, other people's labor. Under this concentration, independent business has been a menace to American society.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
It has always seemed to me that the best symbol of common sense was a bridge.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Our government is based on the belief that a people can be both strong and free, that civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against abuse of freedom.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
You are, I am sure, aware that genuine popular support in the United States is required to carry out any Government policy, foreign or domestic. The American people make up their own minds and no governmental action can change it.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
I tell the American people solemnly that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
The moment a mere numerical superiority by either states or voters in this country proceeds to ignore the needs and desires of the minority, and for their own selfish purpose or advancement, hamper or oppress that minority, or debar them in any way from equal privileges and equal rights-that moment will mark the failure of our constitutional system.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self reliant enough to be free.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
These are bad days for all of us who remember always that when real world forces come into conflict, the final result is never as dark as we mortals guess it in very difficult days.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Your profits are going to be cut down to a reasonably low level by taxation. Your income will be subject to higher taxes. Indeed in these days, when every available dollar should go to the war effort, I do not think that any American citizen should have a net income in excess of $25,000 per year after payment of taxes.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
The most difficult place in the world to get a clear and open perspective of the country as a whole is Washington.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
In the final analysis, the progress of our civilization will be retarded if any large body of citizens falls behind. Without the help of thousands of others, any one of us would die, naked and starved.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Patents are the key to our technology; technology is the key to production.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend not their homes alone but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments and their very foundations are set. The defense of religion, of democracy and of good faith among nations is all the same fight. To save one, we must now make up our minds to save all.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
All private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.

Franklin D. Roosevelt