Quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

All free peoples are deeply impressed by the courage and steadfastness of the Greek nation.

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

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.

The real safeguard of democracy is education.

The ultimate victory of tomorrow is democracy, and through democracy with education, for no people in all the world can be kept eternally ignorant or eternally enslaved.

I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought.

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.

Let us move forward with strong and active faith.

Any Government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse.

In the formative days of the Republic, the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident.

The only thing we have to fear...is audiovisual glitches at our annual event.

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.

So let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless unreasoning unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

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.

We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said that the only way to have a friend is to be one. We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion or mistrust or with fear.

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

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.

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.