F. D. Roosevelt Quotes

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

The public schools shall be free from sectarian influences and, above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed.

The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.

In the long run, the most unpleasant truth is a safer companion than a pleasant falsehood.

We must preserve our right to think and differ.

Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience.

The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.

How many people in the United States do you think will be willing to go to war to free Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania?

Short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things.

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

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

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

We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when any one engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.

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

It is always better to be an original than an imitation.

It is a curious thing in human experience, but to live through a period of stress and sorrow with another person, creates a bond which nothing seems able to break.

Weasel words from mollycoddles will never do when the day demands prophetic clarity from greathearts. Manly men must emerge for this hour of trial.

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do.

To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.

No, I'm not a good shot, but I shoot often.

We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a real sense, by the time we are adults, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

The American People in their Righteous Might will win through to Absolute Victory.

It is not that you set the individual apart from society but that you recognize in any society that the individual must have rights that are guarded.

December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy.

I never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my best judgment.

The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.

Friendship with oneself is all important.

To reach a port we must set sail

A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace.

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.

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.

A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.

The real safeguard of democracy is education.

We have room in this country for but one flag, the Stars and Stripes!

I do not intend that our natural resources shall be exploited by the few against the interests of the many.

A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government.

To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, and to live as a people, we must have trees.

Beware of that profound enemy of the free enterprise system who pays lip-service to free competition, but also labels every antitrust prosecution as a persecution.

I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.

The labor unions shall have a square deal, and the corporations shall have a square deal, and in addition, all private citizens shall have a square deal.

Inequality may linger in the world of material things, but great music, great literature, great art and the wonders of science are, and should be, open to all.

Performance should be made square with promise.

To stand upon ramparts and die for our principles is heroic, but to sally forth to battle and win for our principles is something more than heroic.