Quotes By Franklin Roosevelt

The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of America is grounded in principles and not on any single personality.

Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.

In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

More striking still, it appeared that, if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.

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.

Organized money hates me-and I welcome their hatred!

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.

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.

Against naked force the only possible defense is naked force. The aggressor makes the rules for such a war; the defenders have no alternative but matching destruction with more destruction, slaughter with greater slaughter.

The duty of the State toward the citizen is the duty of the servant to its master.... One of the duties of the State is that of caring for those of its citizens who find themselves the victims of such adverse circumstances as makes them unable to obtain even the necessities for mere existence without the aid of others.

No business is above Government; and Government must be empowered to deal adequately with any business that tries to rise above Government.

I want to preach a new doctrine. A complete separation of business and government.

The first theory is that if we make the rich richer, somehow they will let a part of their prosperity trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory was the theory that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upward through the ranks.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.

I see an America whose rivers and valleys and lakes hills and streams and plains the mountains over our land and nature's wealth deep under the earth are protected as the rightful heritage of all the people.

People die, but books never die.

The barrier to success is not something which exists in the real world; it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability.

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.

They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.