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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

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson — and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W. W. The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373
1930s

Truth , Fight , Country

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, 1932 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois (2 July 1932)
1930s

People

“On this tenth day of June, 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Noting Italy's declaration of war against France on that day, during the commencement address at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (June 10, 1940); reported in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940 (1941), p. 263
1940s

“I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Presidential press conference (21 May 1940), in Complete presidential press conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volumes 15-16 (Da Capo Press, 1972)
1940s

War , World

“An American Government cannot permit Americans to starve.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at San Diego Exposition (1935)

“The peace-loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Quarantine Speech (1937)

Love , Peace , Effort

“Democracy is not dying. We know it because we have seen it revive — and grow. We know it cannot die — because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise — an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Women , Men , Democracy

“And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Prayer on D-Day (1944)

Men , World , Peace , Faith

“In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control; even over his own will.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Address to the National Education Association (30 June 1938)
1930s

God , World , Law

“Enlightened business is learning that competition ought not to cause bad social consequences which inevitably react upon the profits of business itself. All but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of man power, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor and the exploitation of unorganized labor.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Business , Learning , Evil

“The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Letter to all State Governors on a Uniform Soil Conservation Law (26 February 1937) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15373); this statement has sometimes been paraphrased and prefixed to an earlier FDR statement of 29 January 1935 to read: "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." Though it approximates 2 separate statements of FDR, no original document in precisely this form has been located.
1930s

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Second inaugural address (1937)

“We must be the great arsenal of Democracy.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fireside Chat on National Security, Washington, D.C. (29 December 1940)
1940s

Democracy

“As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

People , Victory

“We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression, which may attack us from without, and the forces of ignorance and fear which may corrupt us from within.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech at Madison Square Garden, October 28, 1940
1940s

Fear

“If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech at the Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, September 2, 1940
1940s

God

“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.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech at the People's Forum in Troy, New York http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/msf/msf00015 (March 3, 1912)
1910s

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Part of this is often misquoted as "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," most notably by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his I've Been To The Mountaintop https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm speech. Similar expressions were used in ancient times, for example by Seneca the Younger (Ep. Mor. 3.24.12 http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen/seneca.ep3.shtml): scies nihil esse in istis terribile nisi ipsum timorem ("You will understand that there is nothing dreadful in this except fear itself"), and by Michel de Montaigne: "The thing I fear most is fear", in Essays (1580), Book I, Ch. 17.
1930s, First Inaugural Address (1933)

Life , Time , Understanding , Country

“My friends, judge me by the enemies I have made.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech made on the campaign trail in Portland, Oregon (21 September 1932)
1930s

“It seems to me that the dedication of a library is in itself an act of faith.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remarks at the Dedication of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York, United States of America (June 30, 1941). Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20120531110501/http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/php63041.html from the original http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/php63041.html on January 30, 2021.
1940s

Faith

“The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, State of the Union Address — Second Bill of Rights (1944)

Age , Fear

“The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, State of the Union Address — Second Bill of Rights (1944)

Clothes , Food

“I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Last words spoken while having his portrait painted on April 12 1945 before losing consciousness and dying shortly after.
Disputed

Pain