Quotes By Franklin Roosevelt

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

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted-in the air; a conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward; . . . a liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command-of his head.

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

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.

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

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.

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.

We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.

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.

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

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.