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Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt , often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which realigned American politics into the Fifth Party System and defined American liberalism throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended shortly after he died in office. He is rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but has also been subject to substantial criticism.

Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, to a Dutch American family made well known by the reputation of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, and William Henry Aspinwall. FDR graduated from Groton School and Harvard College and attended Columbia Law School but left after passing the bar exam to practice law in New York City. In 1905, he married his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt. They had six children, of whom five survived into adulthood. He won election to the New York State Senate in 1910, and then served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Roosevelt was James M. Cox's running mate on the Democratic Party's 1920 national ticket, but Cox was defeated by Republican Warren G. Harding. In 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness, believed at the time to be polio, and his legs became permanently paralyzed. While attempting to recover from his condition, Roosevelt founded the treatment center in Warm Springs, Georgia, for people with poliomyelitis. In spite of being unable to walk unaided, Roosevelt returned to public office by winning election as Governor of New York in 1928. He served as governor from 1929 to 1933, promoting programs to combat the economic crisis besetting the United States.

In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide. Roosevelt took office in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. During the first 100 days of the 73rd United States Congress, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief, recovery, and reform. He created numerous programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He also instituted major regulatory reforms related to finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. He harnessed radio to speak directly to the American people, giving 30 "fireside chat" radio addresses during his presidency and becoming the first American president to be televised. The economy having improved rapidly from 1933 to 1936, Roosevelt won a landslide reelection in 1936. However, the economy then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937 and 1938. After the 1936 election, Roosevelt sought passage of the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 , which would have expanded the size of the Supreme Court of the United States. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented passage of the bill and blocked the implementation of further New Deal programs and reforms. Major surviving programs and legislation implemented under Roosevelt include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Social Security, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

The United States reelected FDR in 1940 for his third term, making him the only U.S. President to serve for more than two terms. With World War II looming after 1938, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China, the United Kingdom and eventually the Soviet Union while the U.S. remained officially neutral. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, an event he famously called "a date which will live in infamy", Roosevelt obtained a congressional declaration of war on Japan, and, a few days later, on Germany and Italy. Assisted by his top aide Harry Hopkins and with very strong national support, he worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in leading the Allied Powers against the Axis Powers. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the war effort, and implemented a Europe first strategy, making the defeat of Germany a priority over that of Japan. He also initiated the development of the world's first atomic bomb, and worked with the other Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations and other post-war institutions. Roosevelt won reelection in 1944, but with his physical health declining during the war years, he died in April 1945, less than three months into his fourth term. The Axis Powers surrendered to the Allies in the months following Roosevelt's death, during the presidency of his successor, Harry S. Truman. Wikipedia  

✵ 30. January 1882 – 12. April 1945   •   Other names Франклин Рузвельт
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt: 190   quotes 1   like

Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

“Yesterday, December 7, 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.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Response to the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)
Context: Yesterday, December 7, 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.
The United States was at peace with that nation, 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.

“But Lincoln also understood that after such a decision, a democracy should seek peace through a new unity. For a democracy can keep alive only if the settlement of old difficulties clears the ground and transfers energies to face new responsibilities. Never can it have as much ability and purpose as it needs in that striving; the end of battle does not end the infinity of those needs. That is why Lincoln — commander of a people as well as of an army — asked that his battle end "with malice toward none, with charity for all."”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at the dedication of the memorial on the Gettysburg battlefield (1938)

People , Peace , Democracy , Decision

“We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Fourth inaugural address (1945)

Fear , Peace , Confidence , Courage

“A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Message to Congress on establishing minimum wages and maximum hours (1937)

Democracy , Support

“I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Letter to Samuel B. Hill, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14894 (6 July 1935)
1930s

Hope

“The destiny of America was proclaimed in words of prophecy spoken by our first President in his first inaugural in 1789 — words almost directed, it would seem, to this year of 1941: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered … deeply,… finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people."”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

People

“All free peoples are deeply impressed by the courage and steadfastness of the Greek nation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Letter to King George of Greece (5 December 1940)
1940s

People , Courage

“To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock — to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

History , Time

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Response to the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)

God , Hostility , People , Confidence

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Comment to economic advisor Leon Henderson, as quoted in Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years (1969) by John Kenneth Galbraith, p. 225
Posthumous publications

Reading

“An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as peas in the same pod.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Fireside Chat in the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)

Sense , Country

“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Radio address (26 October 1939), as reported in The Baltimore Sun (27 October 1939)
1930s

Truth , Lie

“Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Advice to his son James on how to make a public speech, as quoted in Basic Public Speaking (1963) by Paul L. Soper, p. 12
Posthumous publications

Sincerity

“The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)

Family , Democracy , Home

“I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping exhausted men come out of line-the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at Chautauqua, New York (1936)

Men , Hate , War , Children

“I do not believe in communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country; several of the best friends I have got are Communists.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Reported by Representative Martin Dies as having been said in a conversation at the White House, in the Congressional Record (September 22, 1950), vol. 96, Appendix, p. A6832. Reported as "exceedingly dubious" in Paul F. Boller, Jr., Quotemanship: The Use and Abuse of Quotations for Polemical and Other Purposes, chapter 8, p. 361 (1967); Boller goes on to say that "it is most unlikely that FDR would have said anything like it, even flippantly, to the zealous HUAC chairman, though he may have told Dies that he was exaggerating the size of the American communist movement".
Misattributed

Communication , Country

“The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them. Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse — it is deceit.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at Madison Square Garden (1936)

Truth , Fight , Country

“In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt's Statement on the National Industrial Recovery Act (16 June 1933) http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html
1930s
Source: [Tritch, Teresa, F.D.R. Makes the Case for the Minimum Wage, http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/f-d-r-makes-the-case-for-the-minimum-wage/, March 7, 2014, New York Times, March 7, 2014]

Men , Business , Dependency , Country

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are no records of Roosevelt having made such a statement, and this is most likely a misquotation of the widely reported comment he made in a speech at the Citadel (23 October 1935):
: Yes, we are on our way back — not just by pure chance, my friends, not just by a turn of the wheel, of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we are planning it that way. Don't let anybody tell you differently.
Misattributed

Way

“Philosophy? I am a Christian and a Democrat. That's all.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

To a reporter who asked him to define this philosophy. Quoted in Alter, Jonathan The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope https://books.google.com/books?id=ASmlaOHQNawC&pg=PA244&dq=fdr+i+am+a+christian+and+a+democrat&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDp7WquOjaAhXqxYMKHTFBDTgQ6AEIUDAH#v=onepage&q=fdr%20i%20am%20a%20christian%20and%20a%20democrat&f=false pg. 244
1930s

“A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted — in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest — at the command — of his head.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Radio Address to the New York Herald Tribune Forum http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15828 (26 October 1939)
1930s

Learning

“All work undertaken should be useful — not just for a day, or a year, but useful in the sense that it affords permanent improvement in living conditions or that it creates future new wealth for the Nation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, State of the Union address (1935)

Sense , Future , Wealth

“In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war. We can and we will achieve such a peace.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Fourth inaugural address (1945)

War , Peace , Victory , Fight

“The work itself will cover a wide field including clearance of slums, which for adequate reasons cannot be undertaken by private capital; in rural housing of several kinds, where, again, private capital is unable to function; in rural electrification; in the reforestation of the great watersheds of the Nation; in an intensified program to prevent soil erosion and to reclaim blighted areas; in improving existing road systems and in constructing national highways designed to handle modern traffic; in the elimination of grade crossings; in the extension and enlargement of the successful work of the Civilian Conservation Corps; in non-Federal works, mostly self-liquidating and highly useful to local divisions of Government; and on many other projects which the Nation needs and cannot afford to neglect.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, State of the Union address (1935)

Success , Housing

“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.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Second inaugural address (1937)

“We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war. Yet we must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at Chautauqua, New York (1936)

War , Peace

“These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, First Inaugural Address (1933)

Men

“We know that we still have far to go; that we must more greatly build the security and the opportunity and the knowledge of every citizen, in the measure justified by the resources and the capacity of the land.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Knowledge

“There seems to be no question that [Mussolini] is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Comment in early 1933 about Benito Mussolini to U.S. Ambassador to Italy Breckinridge Long, as quoted in Three New Deals : Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (2006) by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, p. 31
1930s

Question

“We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Greeting to the American Committee for Protection of Foreign-born (9 January 1940); later inscribed on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.
1940s

“If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any delusions that this war could have been averted, let him look to Norway; and if there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win, again I say, let him look to Norway.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech at the Washington Navy Yard (16 September 1942)
1940s

War

“We know it because, if we look below the surface, we sense it still spreading on every continent — for it is the most humane, the most advanced, and in the end the most unconquerable of all forms of human society.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Sense

“It is true that the moral consciousness of the world must recognize the importance of removing injustices and well-founded grievances; but at the same time it must be aroused to the cardinal necessity of honoring sanctity of treaties, of respecting the rights and liberties of others, and of putting an end to acts of international aggression.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Quarantine Speech (1937)

World , Time

“We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, State of the Union Address — The Four Freedoms (1941)

Men , Selfishness

“No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at Madison Square Garden (1936)

People

“If I prove a bad president, I will also likely to prove the last president.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remark at the time of his first inauguration as quoted in The 168 days (1938) by Joseph Alsop and Turner Catledge, p. 15
1930s

“On each national day of inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

People , Sense

“If the country is to flourish, capital must be invested in enterprise. But those who seek to draw upon other people's money must be wholly candid regarding the facts on which the investor's judgment is asked.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Statement on Signing the Securities Bill http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14654 (27 May 1933)
1930s

Money , People , Drawing , Country

“No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of its minorities.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=MyfeAwAAQBAJ&q=%22No+democracy+can+long+survive+which+does+not+accept+as+fundamental+to+its+very+existence+the+recognition+of+the+rights+of+its+minorities%22&pg=PA401#v=onepage to Walter Francis White, president of the NAACP (25 June 1938)
1930s

Democracy

“It is now beyond partisan controversy that it is a fundamental individual right of a worker to associate himself with other workers and to bargain collectively with his employer. New laws, in themselves, do not bring a millennium; new laws do not pretend to prevent labor disputes, nor do they cover all industry and all labor. But they do constitute an important step toward the achievement of just and peaceable labor relations in industry.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at San Diego Exposition (1935)

Law

“We defend and we build a way of life, not for America alone, but for all mankind.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fireside chat on national defense (May 26, 1940), reported in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940 (1941), p. 240
1940s

Life , Way

“These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)

Democracy , Freedom , Forgetting

“Let us not be afraid to help each other — 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.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Address at Marietta, Ohio http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15672 (8 July 1938)
1930s

Democracy , Help , Country , Forgetting

“We know it because democracy alone has constructed an unlimited civilization capable of infinite progress in the improvement of human life.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Life , Democracy

“As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength, too - strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces. And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Prayer on D-Day (1944)

Courage , Support , Effort , Waiting

“We know it because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Men , Democracy

“Yes, we are on our way back — not just by pure chance, my friends, not just by a turn of the wheel, of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we are planning it that way. Don't let anybody tell you differently.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech at the Citadel (23 October 1935)
1930s

Way , Chance

“The forests are the "lungs" of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s
Context: Forests require many years to mature; consequently the long point of view is necessary if the forests are to be maintained for the good of our country. He who would hold this long point of view must realize the need of subordinating immediate profits for the sake of the future public welfare. … A forest is not solely so many thousand board feet of lumber to be logged when market conditions make it profitable. It is an integral part of our natural land covering, and the most potent factor in maintaining Nature's delicate balance in the organic and inorganic worlds. In his struggle for selfish gain, man has often needlessly tipped the scales so that Nature's balance has been destroyed, and the public welfare has usually been on the short-weighted side. Such public necessities, therefore, must not be destroyed because there is profit for someone in their destruction. The preservation of the forests must be lifted above mere dollars and cents considerations. … The handling of our forests as a continuous, renewable resource means permanent employment and stability to our country life.
The forests are also needed for mitigating extreme climatic fluctuations, holding the soil on the slopes, retaining the moisture in the ground, and controlling the equable flow of water in our streams. The forests are the "lungs" of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. Truly, they make the country more livable.
There is a new awakening to the importance of the forests to the country, and if you foresters remain true to your ideals, the country may confidently trust its most precious heritage to your safe-keeping.

People

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

As quoted in The Roosevelt I Knew (1946) by Frances Perkins, p. 5
Posthumous publications

People , Time