Franklin Delano Roosevelt Quotes (21 Quotes)

They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers ...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

The gains in education are never really lost. Books may be burned and cities sacked, but truth, like the yearning for freedom, lives in the hearts of humble men.

We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities.

It could be inferred from President Roosevelt's public statements that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had come as a complete surprise to his administration - that it had not been, and could not have been, anticipated. . . . 'The United States was at peace with that Nation Japan and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic relations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.'

The presidency is not merely an administrative office. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.

... in politics nothing is accidental. If something happens, be assured it was planned this way.

Every man has a right to life. That means that he also has a right to make a comfortable living.

I have a terrific headache. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

We stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

New ideas can be good and bad, just the same as old ones.

Peace, like charity, begins at home.

The creed of our democracy is that liberty is acquired and kept by men and women who are strong and self-reliant, and possessed of such wisdom as God gives mankind men and women who are just, and understanding, and generous to others men and women who are capable of disciplining themselves. For they are the rulers and they must rule themselves.

Nothing is so responsible for the good old days as a bad memory.

We can see now that we Americans were caught unprepared, because we were ordinary human beings, following the best advice we had at the time. No one would have guessed in 1941 that we would be attacked in such an unsportsmanlike manner as we were. No one could have visualized Pearl Harbor, either out there or in Washington. But if we had known then what we know now, we would have expected an attack in 1941.

I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.

Sports is the very fiber of all we stand for. It keeps our spirits alive.

Happiness ... it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals we know now that it is bad economics.

No business which depends for its existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.