Quotes By Franklin D. Roosevelt

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.

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.

If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time.

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.

The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

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.

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.

Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

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

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.

Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

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

If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.

War is a contagion.

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.

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.

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.