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Quotes by Franklin Delano 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.
  • Every time an artist dies, part of the vision of mankind passes with him.
  • I have no expectation of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.
  • We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
  • Happiness is not in the mere possession of money it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
  • Wise and prudent men -- intelligent conservatives -- have long known that in a changing world worthy institutions can be conserved only by adjusting them to the changing times.
  • I consider it a public duty to answer falsifications with facts. I will not pretend that I find this an unpleasant duty. I am an old campaigner, and I love a good fight.
  • It is fun to be in the same decade with you.
  • Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
  • The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
  • The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
  • The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about reality.
  • I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird, and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
  • No business which depends for its existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level--I mean the wages of decent living.
  • We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
  • More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.
  • Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.
  • A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
  • When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
  • Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own mind.
  • The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
  • Every man has a right to life. That means that he also has a right to make a comfortable living.
  • Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
  • 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.