Franklin D. Roosevelt the President, biography, facts and quotes

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way"

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

"There are as many opinions as there are experts"

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

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

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

"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"

"Be sincere; be brief; be seated"

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

"I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking"

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

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today"

"Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch"

"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"

"The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart"

"Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection"

"We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out"

"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments"

"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds"

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

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

"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"

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

"Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion"

"It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want"

"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"

"We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon"

"No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal"

"Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort"

"Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment"

"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"

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

"Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live"

"Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off"

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

"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"

"A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards"

"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people"

"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward"

"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'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues"

"I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm"

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

"Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan"

"Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion"

"This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny"

"There is nothing I love as much as a good fight"

"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"

"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still"

Born as	Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Occup.	President
From	USA
Spouse	Eleanor Roosevelt
Born	January 30, 1882 Hyde Park, New York, USA
Died	April 12, 1945 Warm Springs, Georgia, USA
Cause	Cerebral Hemorrhage
Aged	63 years

Franklin D. Roosevelt Biography

70 Famous quotes by Franklin D. Roosevelt